Winter Sailfish Part Two: Dead Bait or Live

Sails are amazing acrobats
when hooked and fought.

Over the past few seasons Florida has experienced phenomenal winter runs of Atlantic sailfish. In fact, the season has gotten longer each year, as the population appears to be growing due to major regulatory action taken against pelagic long lining about ten years ago. With the long line fleet rapidly dwindling, and areas where their bycatch of sailfish and marlin was the highest closed to that gear the beneficiaries have been the stocks and anglers.

Live goggleye with a circle hook
in the nose for slow trolling.

While more people are fishing for sails, recreational fishing mortality is at an all time low with the advent of circle hooks and a stronger appreciation for these great billfish. The use of circle hooks has greatly reduced release mortality of both sailfish and white marlin, where the main techniques used for catching both is using either live or rigged dead baits. Circle hooks work by wrapping around the jaw structure of the fish so they are hooked in the corner of the mouth or on the bill. No damage to gills, stomach or throat, no bleeding, easy to remove, and away the fish swim — a little tired from the fight, but no worse for the encounter!

Loading up the live well with live
goggleyes for a days sailfishing.

Two techniques dominate fishing for sailfish — using live bait or trolling with rigged dead ballyhoo. Live bait is most popular from West Palm Beach south to the Florida Keys, with the prime baitfish being goggleyes and greenies, a species of sardine. Serious live bait fishermen use kites, but you can also slow troll a drift fish with live bait and even put them deep on downriggers. Personally I love kite fishing because it leads to savage strikes by aggressive fish right on the surface.

Dead ballyhoo rigged for trolling
with a circle hook.

A fishing kite is run out away from the boat with up to three release clips attached to it at various distances. A live baitfish is suspended from each release clip with the line run through a ring so the angler can control the baitfish from his vantage point on the boat. By letting line out or reeling up slack, he can keep the live bait splashing on the surface of the water, calling out to any sailfish in the area that there is an injured and easy prey item waiting to be eaten. Properly set up, a single angler can control two or three baits suspended from a single kite. When a sailfish pounces, the angler puts the reel in gear and winds slowly to pull the line out of the release clip, then winds like crazy to pick up the slack so the circle hook will wrap around the fish’s jaw.  

Launching a fishing kite. Note the
release clips on the line.

But you don’t have to go to the expense of buying kites, kite reels, rods and all the trimmings to fish live bait. I’ve spent many days fishing off the Florida coast drifting or slow trolling live bait. I even use a downrigger to get live bait down to deep feeding sails and there have been many days that the deep bait has caught the majority of the fish.

Competition trollers rely
on massive dredges as
teasers to attract sails
to their baits.

Trolling with rigged bait is a whole other ballgame. Small ballyhoo are rigged on circle hooks with small chin weights so they swim when trolled and fished using light lever drag reels and rods. Trolling is preferred by anglers north of the Palm Beach area because of the difference in near shore depth and structure. Sails in this area tend to spread out over larger areas, sometimes key on structure that accumulates baitfish. But just the rigged ballyhoo are frequently not enough to attract sails, so a subsurface teaser called a dredge is added to the trolling pattern as an attractor. A dredge is a six-arm wire frame with a couple dozen or more rigged ballyhoo or mullet, with no hooks, pulled behind it. It is dragged 20 to 50 feet behind the boat and weighted so it will run 10 to 20 feet down so it resembles a bait ball or school of baitfish. Tournament anglers use all natural baits on their dredges, but there are bait-free dredges available that are less time consuming and expensive to use that incorporate plastic imitation baitfish or strips of clear material with adhesive baitfish decals strung from them. They present a lot of flash in the water and can attract sailfish well, but if the sail attacks an artificial dredge it will not hang around long. The key is to get the approaching sailfish to switch off the dredge and eat one of the rigged ballyhoo being trolled nearby.

Most Atlantic sailfish are
in the 40 to 60 lb class
like this one, ideal for
light tackle.

Most serious sailfish guys use 20 pound test tackle because Atlantic sails rarely get much larger than 60 or 70 pounds. The vast majority are smaller, which makes them easy to handle on light line and a lot more fun. All the dedicated sailfish tournaments held in Florida during the winter require tackle no heavier than 20 pound test and mandate the use of circle hooks, too. Sails might be small compared to their larger cousins the striped, blue and black marlin, but they are very strong, extremely acrobatic and great fun to catch and release on the right tackle. If you’ve never done it, spend some time down south this winter and get in on the fun. I know I will.

Caputi Blog Tip:

Fluorocarbon leader is a must for sharp-eyed sailfish whether trolling or using live bait and there is none better than Hi-Seas 100% Fluorocarbon or Hi-Seas Quattro Fluorocarbon. Plan on using 60-pound test, which is plenty strong when paired with 20-pound test monofilament running line like Hi-Seas Grand Slam in Hi-Vis Yellow. Acceptable leader length varies from tournament to tournament so be sure to read the rules carefully and rig your tackle accordingly.