With Salt Water Sportsman’s help, you can figure out where your favorite fish is during December and January, the peak of winter. Pick your top species and head to the best bets to find them.
First choice: Panama
Second choice: New Zealand
With monsoon season finally over, boats again troll live bonito and small tuna to rack up releases along the drop in the continental shelf that separates the Gulf of Panama from the open Pacific Ocean. Warm summer currents bring excellent numbers of blues near New Zealand shores. Look for fish to show off Tairua and Whitianga first.
First choice: Brazil
Second choice: Jamaica
Upwellings serve up tuna and dolphin for hungry blues at Royal Charlotte Bank off Canavieiras, Brazil, where six or more daily shots are common this time of year. In Jamaica, 250- to 500-pound blues still hunt along the Cayman Trench, which comes within a half-mile off Montego Bay, where depths quickly drop from 400 to 3,000 feet.
First choice: Panama
Second choice: Australia
Lots of blacks 300 pounds and up prowl underwater pinnacles as shallow as 600 feet between Panama’s Isla Jicarón and Jaqué. In Australia, granders leave the Great Barrier Reef, but juveniles invade Gold Coast, where 75- to 150-pounders come surprisingly shallow to feast on mackerel schooling over the patch reefs.
First choice: Brazil
Second choice: Barbados
If you’re after a trophy, there’s no better place than Vitoria, Brazil, where the first drop, less than an hour’s run, produces some of the world’s largest white marlin, averaging 90 pounds and some hovering around 150. In Barbados, white marlin action is on the upswing as more boats targeting big game raise two or three fish a day.
First choice: Florida
Second choice: Mexico
Expect good to excellent sailfishing from Fort Pierce to Key West, Florida, as hordes of hungry spindlebeaks are both active and in a feeding mood. Migrating sails begin to stage in the Yucatan Channel off Isla Mujeres. The arrival of the billfish coincides with baitfish beginning to school heavily in the area, and the bite improves steadily as spring approaches.
First choice: Guatemala
Second choice: Costa Rica
Boats out of Iztapa, Guatemala, amass extraordinary numbers of releases this time of year, and the sailfish bite off Guatemala often begins closer to shore now than later in the season. In Costa Rican waters, boats out of Golfito and Quepos enjoy the earliest influx of sailfish, but by mid-January the fishing also heats up off Los Sueños and Puerto Carrillo.
First choice: Mexico
Second choice: Ecuador
Stripes remain the protagonists in most offshore battles for boats fishing along the coast of Mexico’s Baja California Sur as the marlin follow the annual baitfish migration. In Ecuador, plenty of striped marlin still hang around the Galapagos Islands, but prolonged periods of choppy seas often make the fishing more challenging.
First choice: Bermuda
Second choice: Bahamas
The fast action around Challenger and Argus banks and the southwest end of the island lets Bermuda overtake the Bahamas as the top wahoo destination this time of year. Nevertheless, San Salvador and neighboring Cat Island,…
