There are many opinions about what pelagic fish eat. Geographical location, the year, the time of the year, water temperatures and prey availability, all play a role. When I ask numerous professionals this question, it is surprising the variety of opinions I hear – often from Captains on the same dock! The real facts matter particularly when developing effective lures and color combinations. The only factual answers to these questions come from stomach content analysis. No opinion, just fact. The fish’s vote is all that matters.
I spent a few days digging around and found that a lot of research has taken place over years past analyzing stomach contents of the different pelagic species particularly Marlin. But the most comprehensive, multi-specie report I could find did not set out to determine what pelagic fish eat. The purpose of the research was to determine what preys on Cephalopods (Squid,
Octopus and Cuttlefish). This research was generated by the Centro Interdisciplinario de
Ciencias Marinas (CICIMAR) and Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission. The title of the research report is “ CEPHALOPOD PREY OF THE APEX PREDATOR GUILD IN THE EPIPELAGIC
EASTERN PACIFIC OCEAN”. The charts below report what was found in the stomachs of different pelagic species in 6 different years during a 14 year time frame. The entire 28 slide
PowerPoint presentation in pdf format is at the bottom.

Argonata - Pelagic Octopus, Teuthoidea – A type of squid, Dosidicus gigas – Humboldt Squid,
Crustacea – Shrimp, Crab, Exocoetodae – Flying Fish, Scombridae – Mackerels, Tunas and Bonito’s
Argonata - Pelagic Octopus, Teuthoidea – A type of squid, Dosidicus gigas – Humboldt Squid,
Crustacea – Shrimp, Crab, Exocoetodae – Flying Fish, Scombridae – Mackerels, Tunas and Bonito’s,
Nomeidae – driftfish – Blue Fathead, Cubiseps, Man-Of-War

Argonata - Pelagic Octopus, Teuthoidea – A type of squid, Dosidicus gigas – Humboldt Squid,
Crustacea – Shrimp, Crab, Exocoetodae – Flying Fish, Carangidae - jacks, pompanos, jack mackerels,
runners, and scads, Scombridae – Mackerels, Tunas and Bonito’s

Argonata - Pelagic Octopus, Teuthoidea – A type of squid, Dosidicus gigas – Humboldt Squid,
Crustacea – Shrimp, Crab, Exocoetodae – Flying Fish, Scombridae – Mackerels, Tunas and Bonito’s

Argonata - Pelagic Octopus, Teuthoidea – A type of squid, Dosidicus gigas – Humboldt Squid,
Crustacea – Shrimp, Crab, Exocoetodae – Flying Fish, Scombridae – Mackerels, Tunas and Bonito’s
This is interesting information and maybe helps explain why some lures are hot one year and not another and why some lures work consistently year to year.
In digging for this information, I found a lot of this same type of information specific to Striped Marlin,
Blue Marlin and White Marlin. There are some similarities but also differences. Black Marlin information was a bit scarce. A synopsis of these reports and links to or pdf’s of these reports follow this information.