The smallest, slimmest billfish off Los Cabos, with a bill so short it barely reaches past the lower jaw. It lives far offshore and turns up only a few times a year, almost always while crews are fishing for striped marlin.
Dark blue above, blue splattered with brown on the sides and silvery white below, with no stripes or spots. The bill is very short, under 15% of body length and barely longer than the lower jaw. The first dorsal fin has a pointed front lobe taller than the body is deep, then stays at an even height along a base that runs almost the whole back. The slender pelvic fins are about twice as long as the short, narrow pectorals, which fold flat against the body. The anus sits far ahead of the anal fin, usually by more than the anal fin’s height.
The shortbill spearfish lives in tropical and temperate waters of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. A few stray into the Atlantic around the Cape of Good Hope but don’t spawn there. In the eastern Pacific it ranges from California and the mouth of the Gulf of California to Peru, including the oceanic islands. It is strongly oceanic and rarely comes into coastal water.
In the eastern Pacific it feeds mainly on squid and fish such as snake mackerels, skipjack, flyingfish, pomfrets and frigate tunas. Spawning is thought to happen mostly in winter, in warm offshore currents of about 25 °C. FAO puts its maximum at about 2 m and 52 kg; fish caught by longliners average about 18 kg.
On November 19, 2015, a spearfish caught trolling with sardine bait off Cabo San Lucas became the first specimen ever recorded from Mexico’s Pacific coast. It measured 153.7 cm and weighed 11.65 kg, and is kept in the CICIMAR fish collection in La Paz.
Source ↗In January 2020 a Cabo fleet reported about six spearfish released in two weeks, calling it very rare: in past years, it said, all of Cabo might catch only 2 to 4.
Source ↗IATTC observers aboard tuna purse seiners in the eastern tropical Pacific logged 422,970 sets from 1993 to 2015. Only 687 shortbill spearfish were caught, mostly between 10°S and 10°N.
Source ↗The first three shortbills fitted with pop-up satellite tags spent more than 90% of every 24 hours between the surface and 100 m, in water of 24–26 °C, almost always within 2 °C of the surface temperature.
Source ↗Spearfish stomachs from the central South Pacific lacked the deep-water fishes found in striped and blue marlin, which suggests it swims shallower. It also tends to eat smaller prey.
Source ↗Of 31 IGFA line-class, tippet and junior records for the shortbill spearfish, 17 come from Kona, Hawaii, and none from Mexico. The all-tackle record is a 50 kg fish from Botany Bay, Sydney, caught in 2008.
Source ↗There is no targeted fishery for the shortbill spearfish. Worldwide it is taken incidentally by tuna longliners and purse seiners, and only very rarely by trolling or sportfishing. Off Los Cabos it hits the same baits and lures used for striped marlin: local reports describe fish taking live or dead caballito, mackerel and sardine, feathers and trolled lures, on offshore banks such as the 150 and 11:50 spots, often on the same day as stripers.
It’s a genuine rarity here. A Cabo fleet’s reports put the usual total at 2 to 4 a year for all of Cabo, and in 2015 a veteran captain called his first one in over 40 years of fishing. Local reports cluster from July through February. Top Anglers boats have caught a few, and every one is a fish to photograph and release.
FAO describes its flesh as scanty and of lower value than other billfish; in Japan it goes mainly into fish cakes and sausages. Top Anglers encourages releasing every billfish, and the spearfish is too rare to keep.
| Reserved for sport fishing (LGPAS art. 68) | The law reserves marlin, sailfish, swordfish, sábalo, roosterfish and dorado “in all their biological varieties” for sport fishing within 50 nautical miles of the coast; as a marlin relative, the spearfish is treated the same way |
|---|---|
| Daily limit (NOM-017-PESC-1994) | 1 billfish (picudo) per angler per day, counting as 5 of the 10-fish total |
| Filleting | Billfish can’t be filleted on board |
| Selling | Fish kept under a sport-fishing permit can’t be sold |
| IUCN Red List | Data Deficient (2023) |
| IGFA all-tackle record | 110 lb 3 oz (50 kg), Botany Bay, Sydney, Australia, 2008 |
In Cabo we follow a local rule of one billfish per boat per day, and Top Anglers encourages releasing every billfish.
A striped marlin has a longer, stouter bill, about 15 rows of cobalt stripes, a front dorsal lobe that drops off gradually toward the tail, and its anus sits close to the anal fin. A sailfish has a sail-like dorsal fin much taller than its body. The other spearfishes (longbill, roundscale and Mediterranean) live in the Atlantic and Mediterranean; the shortbill is the only spearfish regularly found in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
How to tell Cabo’s billfish apart ›
Yes, but rarely. Local fleet reports put it at about 2 to 4 a year for all of Cabo, mostly from July through February, usually while fishing for striped marlin.
It belongs to the same family as marlins and sailfish, Istiophoridae, and in Spanish it’s called marlín trompa corta. But spearfishes have their own genus, Tetrapturus, a very short bill and an anus set far ahead of the anal fin.
It counts as a billfish: 1 per angler per day, which takes up 5 of the 10-fish total, and it can’t be filleted on board or sold. In Cabo we limit boats to one billfish a day and encourage releasing them all.
Top illustration: Top Anglers. Photos: iNaturalist contributors, credited on each photo.
Sportfishers with the range to reach the offshore banks. From $799 with license included.
