Through our travels in Guatemala and Panama, we’ve hooked, landed and eaten more than a few mahi mahi, but we rarely target them specifically.
Nevertheless, each time a neon lit-up mahi comes leaping out of the water we’re reminded of why their one of the world’s greatest gamefish – prolific, hard-fighting, gorgeous and they taste great.
Perhaps most importantly, I don’t think I’ve ever caught one that didn’t put on an aerial show.
Given all of those compelling factors, it’s no surprise that mahi grace a lot of magazine covers. If you want to get someone to buy your publication off the newsstand (remember those?) or grab it off the coffee table, it pays to lead with an aquatic psychedelic pit bull.
They’ll even stop non-anglers in their tracks.
But despite the mahi’s propensity for repeated high jumps, most of the magazine covers I’ve found show them in a grip-and-grin pose or stuck with a razor-sharp gaff. That’s an editorial mistake, in my opinion. The ones that grab this voracious reader’s attention tend to have them doing their best Flying Wallenda imitation.
Here are some of my favorites from over the years:
Anglers Journal
Winter 2023
Florida Sport Fishing
May/June 2013
Field & Stream
March 1954
Florida Sportsman
August 2010
Fishing & Travel
April/May/June 2023
Salt Water Sportsman
Salt Water Sportsman
Sport Fishing
May 1991
Sport Fishing
June 1993
Sport Fishing
June 1993
Sport Fishing
October 1996
Sport Fishing
April 1999
Sport Fishing
June 2000
Sport Fishing
August 2006
Sport Fishing
Sept/Oct 2015
While the photograph and designs of the covers above vary in quality, none of it can match the real thing. A glowing, multicolored “dolphin fish” is something that has to be seen in person.
And we can help you accomplish that feat.
We’re hosting multiple trips to Panama and Guatemala in the coming year. While we can’t guarantee that you’ll catch a mahi, we can almost certainly inform you of the best times to go to each place.
Take a leap of faith, send us an email, and we’ll help you get a mental picture of something no magazine cover can match.
Explore some of the greatest mahi mahi magazine covers ever printed, featuring jumping, wild fish—and learn where to experience the same action in Panama and Guatemala.