Striped bonito in Los Cabos

How to recognize it

A streamlined, silvery fish with eight to eleven nearly horizontal dark stripes on the back, the lower ones broken, and no stripes on the belly. The second dorsal fin is entirely black. Unlike skipjack, bonito have large conical teeth.

Biology

Striped bonito live in coastal and open waters of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. In the eastern Pacific they range from the Gulf of California to Peru and around the oceanic islands, and they often school with small tunas. Two kinds of bonito reach Los Cabos: the striped bonito, which is the one most recorded at the tip of Baja, and the Pacific bonito, whose range ends here.

They eat sardines and other small fish, squid and crustaceans. Females mature at about 45–48 cm (18–19 in) and spawn several times a year, releasing 80,000 to 115,000 eggs.

How it's caught in Los Cabos

Around Los Cabos, local reports show bonito over the banks and high spots, often the most common catch on the bottom in spring, usually on yo-yo jigs. In June 2026 our boats also found small bonito mixed with skipjack under schools of dolphins.

They're just as valuable as bait: a live bonito, or a strip cut from its belly, is one of the baits our captains use for blue marlin.

On the table

A good eating fish with rich, red meat and a bold flavor. Bleed it and put it on ice right away, and cut out the dark bloodline before cooking.

Rules, records & conservation

Don't confuse it with

The Pacific bonito (Sarda lineolata) has about seven slightly slanted stripes and a dusky, white-tipped second dorsal fin. Skipjack have stripes on the belly, not the back. Black skipjack have stripes only on the back, dark spots under the pectoral fin and almost no scales.

Questions

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

Sources

• FishBase: Sarda orientalis
• Smithsonian Shorefishes: striped bonito
• Smithsonian Shorefishes: Pacific bonito
• IATTC: Pacific bonito (tagging and biology)
• IGFA game fish database
• mexican-fish.com: striped bonito
• NOM-017-PESC-1994, 2013 amendment (DOF)
• Gordo Banks Pangas fishing reports

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