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Abstract Satellite transmitters that provide Doppler-based locations and telemeter data via the Argos satellite system have revealed a wealth of information on the movement ecology of diverse fauna such as marine mammals, turtles, and sharks. In contrast, satellite telemetry studies of bony fishes have almost exclusively relied on pop-up satellite archival tags (PSATs) that use light-based geolocation to estimate movements. However, track reconstructions based on light and other sensor data transmitted by PSATs exhibit positional error that is orders of magnitude higher than those from Argos Doppler-based locations, effectively limiting our understanding of bony fish movement ecology to coarse scales. Although PSATs continue to be the technological workhorse of billfish research, with more than 1000 data records published to date, a handful of pioneering studies have tried using tags capable of providing Argos Doppler-based locations to better understand these taxa. We assess the applicability of Argos satellite transmitters to study billfish in the context of their depth distribution and by comparing alternative tag attachment strategies and form factors. We present two case studies that highlight how these data can explicitly be used for fine-scale ecological and oceanographic research. This work culminates with the introduction of a new Smart Position and Temperature (SPOT) transmitting tag designed specifically for billfish and other pelagic fishes that has the potential to open new avenues of research, revealing dimensions of behavior that previously could not be investigated.