Lionfish Hunting Tournaments: Competitive Conservation in Action
What if conservation could be exciting? What if the best way to motivate a community of divers to remove thousands of lionfish from a reef was to make it a competition, with prizes, bragging rights, and the very real satisfaction of knowing that the winner’s trophy represents a reef measurably better off than it was 24 hours earlier?
Lionfish derbies and hunting tournaments have proven to be one of the most effective mass-removal tools in the conservation toolkit. Roger J. Muller Jr. has participated in and supported these events throughout the Caribbean and is a passionate advocate for the tournament model as a complement to year-round removal programs.
What Is a Lionfish Tournament?
A lionfish derby or tournament is an organized event, typically spanning one to two days, in which teams of certified divers compete to remove as many lionfish as possible from designated reef areas. Fish are counted, measured, and often weighed at a central processing station. Prizes are awarded across multiple categories: most fish removed, largest single fish, smallest fish, largest total weight, and sometimes special categories for youth or novice hunters.
Beyond the competition, most tournaments include an educational component (presentations, Q&A sessions with marine scientists), a culinary component (lionfish prepared by local chefs from the tournament’s catch), and a community celebration that brings divers, non-divers, restaurant owners, and conservation advocates together around a shared mission.
How Tournaments Work: Rules and Categories
Tournament rules vary by event, but standard provisions include: all participants must hold a valid scuba certification and, in most cases, a lionfish hunting specialty certification or at least a briefing; only pole spears or approved devices may be used (not spearguns, which carry different regulatory complications in many jurisdictions); all fish must be harvested within the designated competition zone during the official hunt period; and all catch must be submitted to official weigh-in stations with an intact chain of custody.
Special categories often include: the ‘Top Gun’ award for the most fish in a single dive, the ‘Big Fish’ award for the largest individual specimen, and, in some events, a ‘Conservation Award’ presented to the team that also contributes the most to education or outreach surrounding the event.
The Conservation Impact: Numbers Don’t Lie
The removal numbers from lionfish tournaments are genuinely staggering. Large annual events like the Emerald Coast Open in Florida have removed thousands of lionfish from local waters in a single weekend. The Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF) Lionfish Derby Series has collectively removed hundreds of thousands of fish across numerous events over multiple years.
Research comparing reef fish populations at tournament sites before and after events has documented measurable improvements in native fish abundance following intensive removal efforts. The effect is temporary unless maintained by ongoing removal programs, which is one reason tournaments are ideally paired with year-round organized hunting, not used as a substitute for it.
Famous Tournaments Across the Caribbean
Notable events include the REEF Lionfish Derby Series (Florida Keys and beyond), the Emerald Coast Open (Florida Panhandle), various Cayman Islands government-sponsored derbies, and a growing number of Caribbean resort-organized events in destinations like Roatán and Aruba. Roger has connections to several of these events and can point interested hunters toward the right organizers. Check our tournaments page for an updated calendar.
How to Participate and Win
Entry requirements for most tournaments include a valid diving certification, basic equipment (which some events provide for rent), and registration fees that typically support the conservation organization running the event. Training in proper hunting technique dramatically improves your tournament results; knowing where lionfish hide, how to approach them for a clean shot, and how to transfer them efficiently to a Zookeeper without losing time all add up over a full day of competition. Roger’s SSI courses cover all of this. See you on the leaderboard.
For more about lionfish education, SSI certifications, hunting expeditions, and cooking, visit LionfishDivers.com and subscribe for updates on Roger’s upcoming SSI Lionfish Awareness Distinctive Specialty certification program.
