America apparently is extremely limited. 



Bermuda. — Turning northward again to the west- 

 ern tropical North Atlantic, Bermuda has been a 

 historical focal point for big game fishing, with bill- 

 fish species being well represented from the waters 

 of Bermuda and the adjacent Sargasso Sea. Al- 

 though large whites and blues are caught with regu- 

 larity, these waters do not yield billfish in large num- 

 bers. Mowbray (1956) showed that billfish could be 

 taken off Bermuda by deep drift-fishing, which may 

 well be a valuable technique in the oceanic tropics in 

 locating billfish which penetrate the thermocline in 

 search of food. 



Bahamas. — The 3,000 islands comprising the 

 Bahamas have always lured tourists, yet the waters 

 surrounding only a few of them have been fished for 

 billfishes. This is undoubtedly due to the tremen- 

 dous geographical expanse covered by these islands 

 and the relative lack of port facilities for big-game 

 fishing. Notable exceptions are Bimini, Cat Cay, 

 Chub Cay, and Walker Cay, which are less than 200 

 island-hopping nautical miles from the mainland 

 United States. These islands have historically pro- 

 duced many world-record game fish, including sev- 

 eral-score records for billfishes on various kinds of 

 tackle. Blue marlin apparently occur throughout the 

 year, with whites and sails being caught especially in 

 the spring. A few spearfish are taken annually, and 

 swordfish are seen though seldom hooked. Charts 

 based on Japanese longline catches show heavy con- 

 centrations of blue marlin several hundred nautical 

 miles east of Eleuthera and Abaco Islands in late 

 spring and summer, but the distances from even the 

 nearest major port (i.e., Nassau) are presently too 

 far for most anglers. 



Caribbean.— Cuba, the largest island of the 

 Caribbean, and a historical producer of the blue 

 marlin and white marlin, is presently off limits for 

 most anglers. An annual Ernest Hemingway Tour- 

 nament still yields good catches of white marlin ac- 

 cording to the Cuban journal Mar y Pesca, while 

 commercial fishermen fish deep, using drift lines, to 

 catch the kind of swordfish and blue marlin revered 

 in Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea." From 

 commercial catch records spearfish are apparently 

 found scattered along the coast and in offshore wa- 

 ters; however, they have not been reported by an- 

 glers. 



Jamaica is a superb fishing area for small blues of 

 about 70 kg, these fish being especially numerous 

 during the fall sport fishery on the northeastern coast 

 of Jamaica. Large blues are taken by commercial 



drift-fishermen along the northwest, the south, and, 

 especially, the northeast coasts of Jamaica. Sword- 

 fish are occasionally taken by drift fishermen fishing 

 deep off Jamaica, as well as throughout most Carib- 

 bean waters, but these strata are not fished by sport 

 fishermen. A few blue marlin are taken by anglers in 

 the nearby Cayman Islands, but fishing effort is too 

 sporadic to suggest definitive fishing areas or sea- 

 sons. 



The Dominican Republic has yielded good 

 catches of white marlin, especially about Boca de 

 Yuma on the southeastern coast. Sailfish and, occa- 

 sionally, blue marlin are taken there. The rest of 

 Hispaniola, though potentially exciting for billfish, 

 has not been explored. 



The north coast of Puerto Rico has long been an 

 excellent spot for blue marlin, including a one-time 

 world's record of nearly 344 kg. In past years good 

 catches of blues, plus a few whites and sails, and 

 occasional spearfish and swordfish have been made. 

 Presently, the sport catch seems to be attenuating, 

 possibly in conjunction with the increasing levels of 

 pollution in Puerto Rican waters. 



Over the years the habitat east of Puerto Rico, 

 especially the Virgin Islands, has consistently pro- 

 duced good catches of relatively large blue marlin. 

 together with scattered catches of whites and sails. 

 Reputedly, blue marlin of over 500 kg have been 

 hooked and lost east of St. Thomas. There is no 

 reason to doubt these claims, for shark-mutilated 

 carcasses of large marlin of at least this size have been 

 seen or brought in by fishermen fishing in waters off 

 the large islands of Puerto Rico and Cuba. However, 

 in view of the reports of black marlin from mid- 

 Atlantic waters (Ueyanagi et al., 1970), the identity 

 of these large fish is speculative. 



The waters of the Leeward and Windward Is- 

 lands, from Anguilla to Grenada and Barbados, 

 yield an occasional billfish to commercial drift- 

 fishermen. Angling effort is presently almost nonex- 

 istent in this region, possibly due to lack of harbor 

 facilities or appropriate sportfishing boats. In addi- 

 tion, billfishes, as reflected in commercial catches, 

 do not seem especially abundant here in compari- 

 son with other tropical western Atlantic grounds. 



West Coast of South America. — The angling 

 world's record broadbill swordfish of 537 kg was 

 taken at Iquique in northern Chile. Although local 

 sportfishing activity is centered in Iquique, the 

 facilities are limited and fishing effort not extensive. 

 Swordfish are taken commercially at least as far 

 south as Valparaiso by harpoon (Manning, 1957); 



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