Wahoo

Acanthocybium solandri

Depth0–2,000 ft +

The winter catch du jour. November through February is prime, with the Wahoo Smackdown series running out of the Big Game Club.

Typical20–60 lb40–65 in
Largest recorded184 lb8 ft 2 in
Depth range0–830 ftspecies-wide
IGFA all-tackle184 lbCabo San Lucas, Mexico · 2005

How big, really

A wahoo and a six-foot adult, drawn to one scale.

A six-foot adult man standing for scale, drawn to the same scale as the fish — Both drawn to one scale from the sourced length below. The fish is an illustration, not a photograph; the human figure is a stipulated 6 ft (1.83 m) reference, not a measurement.

Wahoo drawn 5 ft 5 in long beside a six-foot adult at the same scale — Both drawn to one scale from the sourced length below. The fish is an illustration, not a photograph; the human figure is a stipulated 6 ft (1.83 m) reference, not a measurement.

The wahoo year

Twelve months around the dial, straight from the island's season data — peak months reach the outer ring. Pick a month to see what else is running. Peak: Jan, Feb, Nov, Dec.

Field notes

How it is fished: High-speed trolling (12-18 knots) with skirted lures (e.g., blue/white Ilanders) over rigged horse ballyhoo, or slower trolling (5-8 knots) with ballyhoo behind sea witches, run at varying depths/distances across drop-offs, temperature breaks, weedlines, and structure edges, typically in 120-350 ft of water; wire leaders and shock cords are used to survive the violent first strike.
What it eats: Fish and squid. NOAA names squid, frigate mackerel, butterfish, porcupine fish, and round herring as specific prey. A Western/Central Pacific diet study found roughly 85% fish, 14% cephalopods, and 1% crustaceans by contents.
Depth: FishBase lists wahoo as usually occupying 0-39 ft (rarely to 66 ft) near the surface, reflecting where they're typically caught trolling. But tagging studies show far greater capability: a western North Atlantic study found tagged wahoo spent 90% of time shallower than about 650 ft with regular quick deeper dives; an eastern Pacific tagging study recorded a maximum dive of 830 ft (253 m).
Worth knowing: Wahoo are famous for blistering speed, but the exact numbers are murkier than fishing lore suggests. The most consistently cited instrumented figure is a tagged 113 cm wahoo recorded at 48 mph (77 km/h) in a burst within the first 10 seconds of a run; the widely repeated claim of 60 mph or more could not be traced to a specific peer-reviewed source and should be treated as an unconfirmed but commonly claimed figure. What is well supported qualitatively is that wahoo have one of the fastest, most powerful initial runs of any gamefish.
Conservation & rules: IUCN Red List: Least Concern (most recent assessment 2007). No U.S. Endangered Species Act listing. Life history supports resilience to fishing pressure: short-lived (5-6 years), matures around age 1, and highly fecund (NOAA: 500,000-45 million eggs per year). No wahoo-specific Bahamas closed season or minimum size limit was found; a general pelagic/migratory species bag limit (kingfish, dolphin, tuna, wahoo) of 18 fish per vessel is referenced by secondary sources but was not independently confirmed against an official Bahamas government PDF.

The record

184 lbIGFA all-tackle world record

Angler Sara Hayward · Cabo San Lucas, Mexico · 2005

Source

Where it lives

The island's relief model with bluewater lit — 2,000 ft +, the Gulf Stream edge, a mile off the beach. Drag it to change the angle.

4 of 8 mapped — 4 without usable coordinates, all listed belowEvery charter and guide the directory holds. Which boats work which water changes with the season and the weather — ask when you call.Seabed: GMRT · Coastline: © OpenStreetMap contributors

The Bimini story

Wahoo is Bimini's signature winter catch. November through February is prime season, headlined by the annual Wahoo Smackdown tournament series run out of the Bimini Big Game Club. These are tournament weigh-ins, not IGFA-certified world records: notable results include a 96.7 lb fish (Team Fishin A Loan, Wahoo Smackdown II, Feb 2013, 132 wahoo caught tournament-wide), a fish over 84 lb with 150+ anglers landing 3,253.5 lb total (Wahoo Smackdown VIII, 2016), and a 52.7 lb top fish with 108 fish/about 1,500 lb total (Wahoo Smackdown XI, 2019). Separately, the closest IGFA-certified record to Bimini is the Men's 130 lb line-class record (149 lb) caught at neighboring Cat Cay in 1962.

The all-tackle record itself is not from the Bahamas, but the Men's 130 lb line-class wahoo record — 149 lb, John Pirovano, June 15, 1962 — was caught at Cat Cay, immediately adjacent to Bimini in the same island group. Additional women's line-class records (74-153.5 lb) were set at San Salvador, Bahamas, in 1996.

Sources

What we could not verify (2)

Exact top speed (48 mph is the most consistently cited instrumented figure; 60 mph+ is commonly claimed but untraceable to a primary source).
Bahamas pelagic species bag limit of 18 fish per vessel (secondary-source only, not confirmed against an official government PDF).