I’ve been talking a lot of s$%# when it comes to sailfish lately – having seen dozens and hooked three in the last two weeks. I said it would only be a matter of time until we landed one – and now I have a story to back up my claims.
My Friday charter cancelled and, despite my best efforts, I was unable to refill the spot at such short notice. Come Friday afternoon, Katie and I decided to go out and try to catch a few kings and maybe a dolphin for just a few hours. Well, we motored to a little spot of mine and put the lines out – in 90 minutes we had 6 knockdowns, caught two 8lb kings and a chicken dolphin.
Right around 2pm one of my long lines bobbed three times and started taking drag, as katie picked up the rod there was an explosion of water about 100 yds behind the boat and flying fish took off everywhere. Katie screamed and tt was then that a sailfish started tailwalking and dancing behind the boat, screaming off hundreds of yds of line. I cleared the lines and got katie prepared for the fight of her life. The big sail probably jumped 20 times before making a run straight at the boat – for 35 minutes she battled this amazing fish as jumped around the boat and refused to come to the gunnel. When he was finally exhausted, I grabbed his bill and pulled him aboard for a picture. Unfortunately, with only two of us on the boat, katie was unable to get in the picture…but what matters is that she caught it. I would rather see her catch one than me catch 100! He revived quickly and swam away very strong.
It was landed using a key largo live bait king rod paried with a TLD-15 w/ 20lb test.
The fish has a lower jaw fork length of approx. 66 inches and using a length/girth calculation, we estimated it weighed anywhere from the low 30s to low 40s. Really hard to tell witha fish like that – but what is for sure is that it’s an easy citation.
I also want to thank my friend Kary for coming over, watching the fight and making sure other onlookers didn’t get to close – i can’t wait to see your photos! I also want to thank all the other boaters (all two or three of you) who were kind enough to stay clear of our lines and gave us lots of room to fight the fish.
It’s only a matter of time before we get a second Sail in the boat this summer!!! Seriously, over the past three weeks – every trip i’ve taken targeting kings, dolphin and her fish we’ve come home with either big kings (15-30lbs), big gaffer dolphin or stories of sails – or some combination of that!!
Katie’s first SAILFISH!
