sailfish Archives -

The cold fronts that sweep through South Florida in January have offshore anglers looking forward to celebrating the New Year by catching sailfish.

Cooler temperatures and blustery winds send the acrobatic billfish swimming south along the Atlantic coast this time of year. On a good day, it’s not unusual for boats to catch and release 10 or more of the state of Florida’s official saltwater fish. Tournament teams have released as many as 50 sailfish on a January day.

Although the fish can be caught by drifting with live sardines or trolling dead ballyhoo, serious sailfish anglers usually fly two fishing kites, each with a variety of baits.

As they head offshore, local captains consider a number of factors to determine where to start fishing: Everything from watercolor and clarity to the presence of baitfish and birds.

Capt. Mark Lamb of West Palm Beach likes to kite-fish along with a color change, which is where the water goes from green to deep blue.

“I’m going to run out to 100, 120 feet of water and start looking for an edge,” Lamb said. “I’m going to look for a temperature change and bait, like flying fish. I’m going to set up on that edge where the bait is. Put the boat out in the blue water and put your baits out on that edge.”

Top sailfish live baits include goggle-eyes, threadfin herring, pilchards, and sardines. The fishing kites are flown behind the boat and two or three fishing lines are clipped to each kite line to get the baits away from the boat. On those January days when sailfish are plentiful and biting, it’s not unusual to be fighting three or four fish at a time.

Lamb’s crew constantly adjusts the fishing lines as the kites move up and down with the wind to keep the baits splashing on the surface. That splashing attracts sailfish as well as kingfish, dolphin, wahoo, and tuna.

If the sailfish don’t bite at first, Lamb said to stay put and keep fishing, because the sailfish will eventually show up to eat.

“When you have a nice edge and there’s some bait around, don’t move,” Lamb said. “Sometimes you’ve got to be patient and fish rather than run around. In a sailfish tournament, two or three or four fish can change everything in minutes. You’re never out of it in a sailfish tournament.”

Lamb added that it can be hard to find an edge on cold-front days when the wind is blowing hard out of the northwest. Under those conditions, Lamb will slow-troll live baits “until we find something” and will often fish around wrecks, which, like edges, attract bait.

The standard tackle for sailfish is a 20-pound conventional outfit with a 15-foot 30-pound fluorocarbon leader tied to a size 5/0 to 7/0 circle hook. Successful tournament captains such as Casey Hunt of Key West and John Dudas of Miami prepare their sailfish leaders and hooks well before they leave the dock to go fishing, and they make sure all of their tackle is in tip-top condition.

“Every single time a line goes in the water, it’s perfect,” said Hunt, who has won billfish tournaments from Florida to the Bahamas to North Carolina. “The hooks, the knots. You’ve got to spend that extra time because that extra time is going to catch you more fish.”

Consider what often happens when you don’t take that time, whether you’re fishing in a tournament or you’re out on the weekend with friends:

A sailfish grabs one of your baits, jumps and snaps the leader because it’s chafed or your knots weren’t snugged up correctly. More hungry sailfish are behind your boat, but you don’t have a hook and leader ready to go. So you have to scramble to tie a new hook to some leader material, fasten it to a line and cast out another bait, but by then the fish are gone.

Dudas, who has won countless sailfish tournaments from Palm Beach to the Florida Keys, constantly evaluates the 20 fishing kites, which are rated for different wind strengths, that he carries on his boat.

“Make sure your kite flies the same, even if you used it yesterday,” said Dudas, who labels those kites based on whether they fly better to the left or to the right. “Fly a kite while you’re catching bait to test it out.”

Dudas, whose favorite sailfish bait is a herring, bridles all his kite baits with a rubber band to a 5/0 or 6/0 circle hook. Like Hunt and Lamb, when one of his anglers gets a bite, he has his crew keep the other baits in the water in case more sailfish are around.

“Sit tight, back off the drag and let him go,” said Hunt of the first sailfish you hook. “The longer you sit, the better chance you have of getting another bite.”

“If you can get one on and leave the rest of the baits working, the odds of catching a double or triple are probably 80 percent,” said Lamb, who has the angler with the first fish move to the bow while he positions the boat so the baits remain in the strike zone.

And what better way to get 2021 off to a good start than by catching and releasing a bunch of sailfish?

Cold fronts in November typically result in red-hot offshore fishing on shallow reefs off the South Florida coast.

“When you think November, the first thing you think of is patch reefs,” said Capt. Abie Raymond of Go Hard Fishing. “It’s a fun timeof year.”

Patch reefs are small mounds of coral in 12 to 30 feet of water that
are scattered from Palm Beach to Islamorada. As Raymond explained, those reefs are where ballyhoo and shrimp gather when water temperatures drop after a cold front.

Capt. Abie Raymond holding a yellowtail snapper

That sudden abundance of bait attracts a variety of species ranging from snapper to sailfish.

“When the water cools down, the patch reefs get full of ballyhoo and everything follows them in there,” said Raymond, who runs offshore and inshore charters in his 26-foot C-Hawk out of Bill Bird Marina in Miami Beach (www.gohardfishing. com). “And the shrimp start running good and push out of the inlets onto the patch reefs.

Raymond added that big mutton snapper and gag grouper feast on the ballyhoo, as do kingfish, Spanish mackerel, cero mackerel, and jacks. At the same time, yellowtail snapper, smaller muttons, and porgies eat the shrimp.

The ballyhoo also attract sailfish to the patch reefs. Raymond said he’s seen several sailfish at a time chasing ballyhoo around the shallow reefs. When that happens, he’ll rig live ballyhoo on spinning outfits to cast to the sailfish.

“You can sight-cast the sailfish because they’re jet black against the reef and the white sand,” Raymond said. “If you watch your bottom machine, you’ll see the relief immediately where it goes from sand to spiky bottom. A lot of times you’ll see sea turtles on the surface, which is a great indicator of a patch reef, or you’ll see ballyhoo. If you see a wad of them, they’re probably on top of a patch reef.”

Catching ballyhoo is fairly easy after you see the baitfish showering out of the water or swimming around patch reefs. Anglers can catch them with a cast net or a hoop net or anchor the boat, put a block of chum in the water and catch ballyhoo on a rod and reel. You can also tie off your boat to the mooring balls along shallow reefs throughout the region and chum up ballyhoo.

When the ballyhoo show up in the chum slick, you can use light spinning outfits to cast small gold hooks baited with a piece of shrimp to catch one baitfish at a time.

An even better method that Raymond learned from Capt. Ray Rosher is to tie a loop of Monel wire or monofilament to a popping cork or a kite fl oat and clip it to the bottom of a sabiki rig where the weight is normally attached. That way, the sabiki rig, which has six hooks, fl oats on the surface.

“They’ll eat the sabiki hooks or you can bait the hooks with a small piece of shrimp or even fresh ballyhoo,” said Raymond, who immediately deploys some of the live baits and also puts out a few live shrimp or fresh dead shrimp on the bottom. “Half of a fresh dead shrimp will catch all kinds of good stuff.”

He fishes the shrimp on a 10-pound spinning outfit with 20-pound braided line with three feet of 30-pound fluorocarbon leader tied to the main line with a double-uni knot. A half-ounce egg sinker slides on the leader above a 2/0 or 3/0 circle hook, depending on the size of the shrimp.

Raymond fishes the ballyhoo on 20-pound spinning outfits. He ties a Bimini twist in the 20-pound main line and uses a no-name knot to attach the double line created by the Bimini to 15 feet of 50-pound monofilament leader. He uses an 80-pound Spro swivel to add 12 inches of No. 5 stainless wire to prevent cutoffs from mackerel. The wire is attached to a 6/0 VMC light wire circle hook.

He secures the ballyhoo to the hook with an elastic bridle band, which is available at local tackle shops. Raymond places the band over the bend of the circle hook and ties a half-hitch in it, pulling the knot tight to the hook to create a loop. Using an open-eye bridle needle, he hooks the loop on the needle and runs it through the ballyhoo’s lower jaw and then loops it over the tip of the ballyhoo’s bill.

“The hook rests on the top of his jaw, so the ballyhoo can still breathe, his mouth is open, the ballyhoo is secure and the hook is exposed completely,” Raymond said. “It sounds complicated, but it’s so easy to do it.

“If you have one ready in the livewell and you see ballyhoo spraying, fi re it out. You might catch a Spanish mackerel, a kingfish, a jack, or a sailfish. Some days it’s just bite after bite.”

Days like that make November a month to remember.

Tag: sailfish

Colder temperatures, blustery winds bring sailfish

Cool Novembers bring hot fishing near shallow reefs