Skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis), illustration

Sport fishing Katsuwonus pelamis

Skipjack tuna in Los Cabos

The small tuna that feeds the big ones. Skipjack travel in fast schools offshore, fight hard on light tackle, and a live one is one of the best baits there is for blue marlin.

Up to 110 cmMax length (fork)

46 lb 5 ozIGFA world record

Aug – NovMost seen in Los Cabos

5 per dayLimit per angler

Season in Los Cabos

Jan·Feb·Mar·Apr·May·Jun·Jul●Aug●●Sep●●Oct●●Nov●●Dec●

●● best months · ● regular · · occasional. Based on local fishing reports; conditions change year to year.

Tap a month to see everything biting in Cabo that month ›

How to recognize it

A dark purplish-blue back with no markings, silvery sides and four to six dark stripes running along the belly and lower sides. Stripes on the belly and none on the back are enough to tell it from every similar species.

Biology

Skipjack live in tropical and subtropical seas around the world, offshore, near the surface, in water of 15–30 °C. In Mexico they're found on both coasts, but not in the northern three-quarters of the Sea of Cortez. They school with birds, sharks, whales and drifting objects.

They eat small fish, crustaceans and squid, and often each other. In the tropics they spawn all year: a female can spawn almost every day, releasing 100,000 to 2 million eggs per batch, and the eggs hatch in about a day. They mature at about 41 cm (16 in), around a year and a half old, and live 8 to 12 years.

Things you probably didn't know

A spawning machine

In tropical waters a female can spawn almost daily, releasing up to 2 million eggs at a time. The eggs hatch in about a day.

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Warmer than the sea

A tuna is not quite cold-blooded: skipjack red muscle has been measured 9.1 °C warmer than the 25.6 °C water around it.

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125,000 tiny arteries

That heat is kept by a counter-current heat exchanger: in a 2 kg skipjack, about 125,000 tiny arteries run beside the same number of veins, so warm blood heats the cold blood coming in.

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The hardest food in the world

Japanese katsuobushi is skipjack that has been simmered, smoked and dried until it's rock-hard, then shaved for dashi broth. It's called the hardest food in the world.

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A record catch, and still healthy

Fleets landed 645,000 tonnes of skipjack in the eastern Pacific in 2024, a record, and the stock is still assessed as healthy: not overfished.

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Drawn to anything floating

Skipjack gather under floating objects. In the eastern Pacific, tuna boats find them mostly under logs and drifting debris.

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Photos

Skipjack tuna, photo 1 — iNaturalist contributor · iNaturalist · CC0

Skipjack tuna, photo 2 (Portugal) — Michel Frisch · iNaturalist · CC BY 4.0

Skipjack tuna, photo 3 (87FGWGPH+37) — Zac Peterson · iNaturalist · CC BY 4.0

Skipjack tuna, photo 4 — cello caruso-turiello · iNaturalist · CC BY 4.0

How it's caught in Los Cabos

Skipjack are caught trolling small feathers, plugs and spoons at speed. Around Los Cabos, local fishing reports show schools offshore mainly from late summer through fall.

For us they're as important as bait as they are as a catch: a live skipjack, slow-trolled, is one of our favorite baits for blue marlin and big yellowfin, and chunks of skipjack work on the bottom for snapper and grouper.

On the table

It has the strongest flavor of the tropical tunas, with firm, dark meat. More than 95% of the world's skipjack ends up in cans sold as "light tuna".

Rules, records & conservation

Daily limit (NOM-017-PESC-1994)	Up to 5 per angler per day, within the 10-fish total
IUCN Red List	Least Concern (2021)
Eastern Pacific stock (IATTC 2024)	Not overfished
IGFA all-tackle record	46 lb 5 oz (21.00 kg), La Gomera, Spain, 2020

Don't confuse it with

The black skipjack (Euthynnus lineatus, "barrilete negro") has stripes on the back, not the belly, and dark spots below the pectoral fin. The Pacific bonito (Sarda) has slanted stripes on the upper body.