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Updated: May 14, 2025
A small gray shark and a huge yellow shark were coming up with our quarry. R. C. said things, and pulled hard on the light tackle. I got hold of the leader and drew the sailfish close to the boat. He began to thresh, and the big shark came with a rush. Instinctively I let go of the leader, which action was a blunder.
But as I fish for sailfish with a free-running reel, of course I am exasperated when a kingfish takes hold. My brother pulled in this kingfish, which was small, and we rebaited our hooks and went on again. I saw more turtles, and one we almost ran over, he was so lazy in getting down. These big, cumbersome sea animals, once they get headed down and started, can disappear with remarkable rapidity.
Besides, nobody knows how large these sailfish grow. I had hold of one that would certainly have broken my line if he had not thrown the hook. On this memorable day I had scarcely trolled half a mile out into the Stream before I felt that inexplicable rap at my bait which swordfish and sailfish make with their bills. I jumped up and got ready. I saw a long bronze shape back of my bait.
I surely did shiver at the way my brother came up with that light tackle. But he hooked the sailfish, and nothing broke. Then came a big white splash on the surface, but no sign of the fish. R. C.'s line sagged down. "Look out! Wind in! He's coming at us!" I called. "He's off!" replied my brother. That might well have been, but, as I expected, he was not.
A bronze and silver blaze and a boil on the water told me how hungry R. C.'s sailfish was. "Let him run with it!" I yelled. Then I attended to my own troubles. There was a fish rapping at my bait. I let out line, yard after yard, but he would not take hold, and, as R. C.'s line was sweeping over mine, I thought best to reel in. "Hook him now!" I yelled.
I was surprised to see a sailfish stick his bill out of the water very much closer to the boat than where R. C.'s fish should have been. I had no idea then that this was a fish other than the one R. C. had hooked. But when he cut the line either with his bill or his tail, and R. C. wound it in, we very soon discovered that it was not the fish that he had hooked.
Assuredly we all felt that there would be no difficulty in soon hooking up with another sailfish. And precisely three minutes later I was standing up, leaning forward, all aquiver, watching my line fly off the reel. I hooked that fellow hard. He was heavy, and he did not come up or take off any length of line.
He broke water on a slack line and showed us all his dripping, colorful body nearer than a hundred feet. R. C. thereupon performed with incredible speed at the reel and quickly had a tight line. Mr. Sailfish did not like that. He slid out, wrathfully wagging his bill, and left a seamy, foamy track behind him, finally to end that play with a splendid long leap.
And the obvious reason is that nobody seems to take the trouble to get what might be proper bait for sailfish. Mullet is an easy bait to get and commands just as high a price as anything else, which, as a matter of fact, is highway robbery. With a bait like a ballyhoo or a shiner I could get ten bites to one with mullet. We trolled along at slow speed.
Then I threw on my drag and leaned over to strike. But he let go. Quickly I threw off the drag. The sailfish came back. Another tug! I let him run. Then threw on the drag and got ready. But, no, he let go. Again I threw off the drag and again he came back. He was hungry, but he was cunning, too, and too far back for me to see. I let him run fifty feet, threw on the drag, and struck hard. No go!
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