Rainbow runner in Los Cabos

How to recognize it

Long, slender, torpedo-shaped body with a pointed snout and a small mouth that ends well before the eye. Dark olive-green to blue above and white below, with two narrow light blue stripes along each side and a broader olive or yellow stripe between them; the fins are olive or yellowish. Behind the second dorsal fin and behind the anal fin sits a detached finlet of two rays. The tail is deeply forked on a slender, notched base, and there are no hard scutes along the lateral line.

Biology

The rainbow runner lives in tropical and subtropical seas around the world: from Massachusetts to Brazil, off West Africa, throughout the Indo-Pacific, and rarely in the Mediterranean off Genoa. In the eastern Pacific it ranges from the mouth of the Gulf of California to Ecuador, including the Galápagos and other oceanic islands. It’s an open-water fish, found near the surface over reefs or far offshore around floating logs and debris, from the surface to 150 m but usually 2 to 10 m deep, and it can form large schools.

It feeds mainly on the larger crustaceans of the zooplankton, plus small fish and squid. Its eggs float in the open sea. It commonly reaches 80 to 90 cm, matures at about 65 cm and grows to 180 cm; the oldest reported fish was 6 years old. The heaviest on record weighed 17.05 kg.

How it's caught in Los Cabos

Local reports from Gordo Banks Pangas in San José del Cabo, published since 2010, mention rainbow runners mostly from September to December, with the best weekly counts in October and November and almost none from April to July. The fleet notes they gather on the high spots and prefer warm water. They come from the same banks and rock piles that hold the yellowfin tuna, such as the Gordo Banks, the Iman Bank and the structure north of Punta Gorda, mixed with amberjack, snapper and grouper.

Most are caught on yo-yo jigs or on strips, chunks and live bait drifted over the structure. The same reports say most local fish run under 5 lb, with some up to 15 lb; in October 2025 a 25-pounder took a slow-trolled live bulito. Offshore, rainbow runners are also among the fish that gather under drifting objects with dorado and tuna.

On the table

A good food fish, sold fresh, salted, dried and frozen, and used for sashimi. The San José del Cabo fleet calls it good eating (local report). FishBase lists reports of ciguatera.

Rules, records & conservation

Don't confuse it with

Yellowtail (jurel, Seriola dorsalis) has a bigger mouth that ends under the front edge of the pupil, a single bronze-to-yellow stripe, yellow fins and no detached finlets. Almaco jack (Seriola rivoliana) is deep and arched, with long sickle-shaped dorsal and anal lobes and a dark bar from nape to eye. The rainbow runner has a small mouth that ends well before the eye, light blue stripes on either side of the yellow one, and a two-ray finlet behind the dorsal and anal fins.

How to tell yellowtail, almaco jack and Cabo’s jacks apart ›

Questions

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

Sources

• IGFA world records: rainbow runner
• FishBase: Elagatis bipinnulata
• Smithsonian Shorefishes of the Eastern Pacific: rainbow runner
• Smithsonian Shorefishes of the Eastern Pacific: yellowtail jack
• Smithsonian Shorefishes of the Eastern Pacific: almaco jack
• Forget et al. 2020, rainbow runner and triggerfish at floating objects (Marine Environmental Research)
• FishBase: species of the genus Elagatis
• Gordo Banks Pangas fish reports, San José del Cabo
• NOM-017-PESC-1994, 2013 amendment (DOF)

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