The Billfish Report is counting down its Top 10 Billfisheries of the Year, and coming in at #5 Punta Cana, Dominican Republic (“DR”). Criteria for our Top 10 include fish numbers, variety of billfish species, average size of fish, length of season and numbers of boats fishing.

This is the first time Punta Cana has made it into our Top 10. Turns out, we may have been overlooking this fishery for years. All it took was a bunch of blue marlin and well, you get our attention. What was often thought of as one of the great White Marlin fisheries in the Caribbean (and it is), the Blue Marlin bite may actually be better. Many boats used to past by these water on their way down to St Thomas and would not even bother to wet a line, but we are betting this is not going to happen much anymore.

The majority of these blue marlin are less than 200 lbs, but there is really only one other place in the world that offers these kind of numbers on Blue Marlin and that  is the Cape Verdes. We admit, we would fall into a “trance” sometimes when it came to these reports, 5-6, 6-9, 7-8, 8-10 ALL on Blue Marlin. The best day we heard of was a 9-19 Blue Marlin day on the Betsy. We are not not marine biologists, but we feel comfortable in saying this HAS to be a nursery of some sort.

While the fish seems to move up and down the East Coast of the Dominican Republic, it does appear to be an almost year round fishery. As more boats start calling the “DR” home, I think we will get a better feel for how much greater this fishery can be. We know that Caroline is calling Punta Cana home and it certainly feels like Betsy is sticking in the area. With these top boats sticking in the area and all the other top notch boats , don’t be shocked when we report  on a 20 Blue Marlin release day in 2013.

Congratulations to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, our #5 Billfishery of 2012. Here are some of the Highlights!

Cap Cana, DR – Capt. Paco Vela went an impressive 7-10 on Blue Marlin. 13 Blue Marlin over 2 Days. 

Cap Cana, DR – Caroline went 8-10 on Blue Marlin.

Cap Cana, DR – Get Lit went 6-10 on Blue Marlin and 1-3 on White Marlin.

 Cap Cana, DR – Natural had a great day going 7-8 on Blue Marlin.

Cap Cana, DR – Natural released a Grand Slam with 4 Blue Marlin, 2 White Marlin and a Spearfish.

Cap Cana, DR – Special day for the Get Lit going 8-13 on Blue Marlin, raising 21. 

Cap Cana, DR – Simply spectacular bite on the Betsy going 9-19 on Blue Marlin!

Cap Cana, DR – Therapy went a very impressive 8-9 on Blue Marlin.