African pompano in Los Cabos

How to recognize it

Deep, strongly compressed body that becomes longer with age, with a steep, rounded head profile. The scales are tiny and buried in the skin, so the fish looks scaleless. Silvery with a light metallic blue tinge on the back and a small, diffuse dark spot at the upper end of the gill opening. The front lobes of the second dorsal and anal fins are long; in juveniles they become extremely long threads, and juveniles also show 5 chevron-shaped bars on the body. The pectoral fins are long and curved, and the straight rear part of the lateral line has 18 to 22 scutes near the tail.

Biology

The African pompano lives in tropical seas worldwide. In the eastern Pacific it ranges from the tip of Baja and the southwestern and southeastern Gulf of California to Chile, including the Revillagigedo, Galápagos, Cocos and Malpelo islands. It has been recorded at several localities in Baja California Sur. Reef Life Survey divers rarely see it: it turns up at less than 1% of the reef sites they survey within its range.

Young fish are pelagic and drift in open water, while adults are solitary in coastal seas and usually stay near the bottom, from the surface down to about 100 m. They feed on slow-moving crustaceans and occasionally on small crabs and fish. It reaches 150 cm and the heaviest on record is the 22.9 kg IGFA world record fish.

How it's caught in Los Cabos

African pompano occur around the tip of Baja but are uncommon, so one is a bonus catch rather than a target you can plan a trip around. Adults are solitary and stay near the bottom in coastal waters.

They are usually hooked on jigs or live bait worked close to the bottom. A big one is a long, heavy fight, so keep steady pressure. Sport fishing is not allowed inside Cabo Pulmo National Park.

On the table

FishBase rates it an excellent food fish, marketed fresh, dried or salted, but also lists reports of ciguatera poisoning for this species.

Rules, records & conservation

Uncommon around Los Cabos; a bonus fish, not a target.

Don't confuse it with

The Pacific lookdown (Selene brevoortii) and the hairfin lookdown or Mexican moonfish (Paraselene orstedii) are also flat, silver and thread-finned when young, but they have a very steep, concave forehead and stay small (42 cm and 31 cm). The threadfin jack (Euprepocaranx dorsalis) has filaments on the second dorsal and anal fins too, but it has an elongate black spot on the gill cover, 43 to 56 small scutes and reaches only 60 cm. The African pompano has a rounded, not concave, forehead and grows far larger.

Questions

By Max VargasTop Anglers, Cabo San Lucas · international judge at big game fishing world championships · reviewed October 2026

Sources

• Smithsonian Shorefishes of the Eastern Pacific: African pompano
• FishBase: Alectis ciliaris
• FishBase: Alectis ciliaris in Mexico
• Reef Life Survey: Alectis ciliaris
• IGFA world records: African pompano
• ETYFish Project: Carangidae etymology
• Smithsonian Shorefishes of the Eastern Pacific: Pacific lookdown
• Smithsonian Shorefishes of the Eastern Pacific: hairfin lookdown
• Smithsonian Shorefishes of the Eastern Pacific: threadfin jack
• NOM-017-PESC-1994, 2013 amendment (DOF)
• NOM-059-SEMARNAT-2010, 2019 annex (DOF)
• Aburto-Oropeza et al. 2011, Cabo Pulmo recovery (PLOS ONE)

Top illustration: Top Anglers. Photos: iNaturalist contributors, credited on each photo.