Many of my customers are not particular about what they catch. Some just want “action” regardless of the type of fish. Some prefer to catch something they can enjoy for dinner at the end of the day. Both of those options leave me with a variety of fish to try to catch to make them happy. Sometimes, I get serious anglers. The kind that wants to target a specific fish and are not worried about action or dinner. That was my customer today. He has fished with me long enough that he is also a good friend. He loves to catch Sailfish. That is the only fish he is worried about. That’s cool with me because I like to fish for Sailfish. So today, we were looking for a Sailfish.
When I am targeting Sailfish specifically, I want to fish with live bait. It is more work for me. We have to go to the reef and I throw a cast net on the Ballyhoo. Yesterday it was a bit rough so throwing a 10ft net, (20 ft diameter), without going in with it took effort. I figured it was 50-50 so I took my phone and walled out and tossed away. It was a bit of a struggle to get bait. Not only was it a bit rough, 3-5 ft seas, but we were on the reef and the small yellowtail snapper came up on the chum bag. That tends to keep the Ballyhoo, (baitfish) back just at the edge of my throwing range. We got them, but it took more throws than my old back would have liked and I did sleep very well last night.
When Sailfishing with live bait, you let the sailfish find you. Instead of trolling around, you “set up” in a spot with the baits out and keep the boat in gear just enough to keep the lines tight. Yesterday, the current was roaring to the west. We actually trolled facing to the east with the trolling valves out and went backward all day. The current was running west harder than we were going east. It actually made for a comfortable drift.
While we were fishing for Sailfish today, we had a few bites from other fish. We lost a few hooks to “toothy critters” most probably barracudas and mackerel. We did release one Barracuda, but as the day went on, we were not seeing any Sailfish. I made a move to the West. It was an area where another captain had caught some Sailfish a few days earlier. It turned out to be a good move as we were only there about 20 minutes when we finally hooked a nice Sailfish. As I mentioned my angler is very experienced. We were fishing for sailfish today with 20 lb spinning tackle and he set his own hooks.
That was the only Sailfish we saw all day. I was hoping for multiple fish. Conditions were not bad, but not the best either, so going 1 for 1 was not a bad day. We also caught 5 small dolphin while looking for the sailfish