Tips for Your First Mahi-mahi Popping Trip to punta cana

We first became intrigued about fishing in punta cana when my friend Mario sosa described to me the process of popping for Mahi-mahi, and then sent a few videos. Whether it’s chasing smallmouths up north or peacock bass south of the equator, but I’d never seen anything like acres of herding dolphins, diving birds, and rampaging yellowfin Mahi-mahi converging in a tornado of chaos. The reality lived up to the hype, too. On our first trip to Sport Fish punta cana in April of 2021 we were able to hook up and land some finned freaks of nature on our first stop. With three trips under our belt now, I still get as excited as when I saw that first boil and then heard the drag sing. 

Seriously, if you’re a bass angler, you owe it to yourself to check this out, and if you thought that peacock bass provided the ultimate surface thrill, you’re in for a rude awakening. I still love our Amazon trips, but from the perspective of pure power and fishy violence, the two are not directly comparable.