Species 01. Makaira nigricans
Blue marlin fishing in the Canary Islands
The fish that formed this crew. Between June and October the blue marlin works the drop-offs of the archipelago, and hunting it well has less to do with luck than with reading where structure, temperature and bait agree.
Overview
The blue marlin is the largest billfish in the Atlantic and the one that defines big game fishing everywhere it appears. Females grow far beyond males: fish over 300 kg are almost always female, while males rarely pass 160 kg.
It is a visual hunter built for speed. The bill is not a spear but a club: it stuns bait with lateral sweeps and then turns to feed. That single fact governs how we rig, how we drop back, and why a marlin that felt hooked can still come off thirty seconds later.
In the Canaries it is a summer and early autumn fish, and it is almost always a solitary one. Raising two in a day is a good day. Raising four is a day you remember.
We release every blue marlin. No exceptions, no photographs worth a dead fish.
Where
Where the blue marlin holds
Blue marlin follow structure and temperature, not coordinates. In the Canaries that means the shelf edge: the line where the bottom falls from a few hundred metres to more than a thousand in a short distance, and the thermal fronts that set up over it in summer.
The islands with the steepest, closest drop-offs give the shortest run to blue water. That is why our marlin days usually start from the eastern islands and why we will move island if the front moves.
Best islands for this species
How we fish it
How we fish it
We fish blue marlin on the troll, with a five-line spread worked along the edge. Lure selection matters less than lure position: the pattern has to look like a small school being pushed, and the boat has to be turning through water that means something.
Our captain learned the dead bait switch in Cape Verde in 2016, alongside some of the best blue marlin captains in the Atlantic. It is the technique that converts a raised fish into a hooked fish, and it is not something you pick up casually.
When a fish comes up on a teaser, everything depends on the next four seconds: the switch, the drop back, and the discipline not to strike early.
Live bait, and why the live wells matter
For blue marlin, a live skipjack swimming properly is the best bait there is. No lure matches it when the fish is looking.
The perennial problem is keeping it alive. That is why the Astinor has live wells for tuna bait, with circulating water, keeping it in condition all day. What you present at four in the afternoon is as good as what you had at dawn.
We work marlin on the troll, on bait & switch and on the kite, depending on what the fish are doing. And you do not need experience: the crew teaches the technique step by step and matches the tackle to you.
Fishing Intelligence
Where we look for it, and why
A blue marlin day is decided before we leave the dock. We look for a thermal front sitting over the thousand-metre contour with the current pushing bait against the slope. When those three things line up in the same place, that is where we spend the day.
It does not guarantee a fish. Nothing does. It means we spend our limited hours where the odds are best instead of covering water at random.
Questions
About blue marlin
How big do the blue marlin get here?
Most fish raised in Canarian water are in the 100 to 300 kg range. Larger fish exist and are caught in the Atlantic every season, but we would rather tell you the honest average than the exception.
Do you keep the marlin?
Never. Every blue marlin we catch is released, and we handle the fish in the water to give it the best chance. Circle hooks and a short fight are part of that.
What are the chances of raising one?
In season, on a well-chosen day, raising a fish is realistic, but marlin fishing is fishing. Some days you raise three, some days none. Anyone promising you a marlin is selling you something.
We don't wait for the fish. We follow them.
Book a blue marlin day
Send us your dates and the species you are after. We will tell you honestly what the ocean is likely to be doing.