Pacific Sailfish
They are much larger than an Atlantic Sailfish but I hear they have the same DNA. Sailfish look heavier than they actually are. If you weigh one everybody thinks is a hundred pounder, you’ll find it’s only 70 pounds. A really big sailfish will go 150. We weighed one once, a Russian guy caught it, and wanted to hang it back on his yacht. It weighed over 200, that was very unusual, I thought we had a striped marlin. We almost never get Striped Marlin here, only seen a few and they were all in the same year.
We used to have so many sailfish here, they were actually a problem. They would get into our marlin baits killing and wounding the baits, sails have trouble sometimes getting big bonitos down their throats. Back in the early nineties, we could typically catch six or a dozen each day pulling lures. My best day was something like 40 fish in a day on Panama Baits. Those days are long gone.
It’s the same with Dorado, we had a mess of them also, now mostly gone. It happened quick. I first started fishing here in 1991 and for the first ten years we nearly never saw a long line. The only long line you’d find, always had some piece of &*^%$ Costa Rican boat at the other end of it. Panamanians just did not long line out here, back then they were too busy taking the snappers out. The Sails & Dorado were thick, a lure pulling heaven on earth. You’d never go a whole hour pulling lures and not get hammered by something. I never live baited in those days.
It was around 1998 or so when one company out of Pedrigal Panama put several boats out here, setting long lines on the surface, one after another drifting over the Hannibal Bank. They ran their long lines during December - March when Dorado used to be here in the greatest numbers. The dorado were always big ones and in twos, a bull & cow. The cows were always full of ripe eggs. I imagine if you cut open the sailfish, we’d find them full of eggs too. I speculate the Sails & Dorado were here on an ancient mission to reproduce & feed. I imagine we have localized populations that make regular migrations to traditional feeding & breeding areas. It only took four years to deplete the resource. I believe they took all the fish during breeding time.
Beats me why the marlin fishing did not get worse. Marlin fishing is as good now as it was twenty years ago, in fact I’m catching more then ever. I hope with Panama’s new commercial fishing laws, the Sailfish will rebound. Purse seiners have been outlawed here in Panama for over two years now. Last year our great president outlawed long-liners, incredible but true. Yellowfin Tuna are definitely more abundant than ever before, lets hope the same result becomes our Sailfish & Dorado.
The sailfish are not all gone, we still catch them just nothing like before. Usually in January through April some days we see them jumping here and there. If I see more than three or four free jumpers in an hours time, it’s worth fishing for them and here is how we do it...
We make up “Panama Baits”. Belly strips from Bonitos. We cut the bellies out and tie a circle hook up at the front of the strip. We troll them like you would troll ballyhoo, just skipping up on the surface. Keep the drag lever set low near free-spool with the clicker on. Sails often show themselves before the take, you’ll see the dorsal fin or his bill sticking out of the water behind the bait.
When you have a sail behind a bait, you should pick up the rod and hold it high over your head with your thumb on the brass of the line spool. Then lower the rod tip to the water and raise it over your head again. This will effect a ten foot drop back, then a ten foot quick retrieve. When you feel the sailfish take the bait, lower the rod again and drop back a bunch of line in free-spool. Give it a long take, give it more than five maybe even ten seconds, then up the drag and reel while pointing the rod tip at the sail. When you feel it come tight, raise the rod again and you’re on!
Where there is one you hope there are more. So if I’m on my game I’ll MOB the spot where we raised the fish. As soon as the fish is hooked up I’ll go into a turn, have the angler go into the inside corner, keeping the other Panama Baits trolling on the outside. Ideally another one or two sails will come up and get hung. Three is all we want at once. After we get those in and released, we put our belly baits back out and go back over the MOB I’ve marked on the GPS. I’ll start making circles in four directions around the spot. I try to draw a four leaf clover on the plotter. The school should be close. If enough sails are in the area, I can figure which way they are headed by noting which direction off the original MOB mark we raise others. All the while I’m watching the color sounder with the gain up high, trying to see bait balls, the reason for the aggregation.
Sailfish are the perfect bait & switch fish. They really hang in there and even the most nervous clumsy angler can get several shots on the same fish. I guess the most fun way to fish sails is pulling hook-less belly baits, and casting the hooked bait with a heavy weight spinning rod with 30# line on it. Light drag makes a sailfish jump and jump and jump.
We see sails under water often. When freediving with dolphins & yellowfin tuna or when swimming under offshore logs they will hang around you a bit before buggering off. What a beautiful fish, really extraordinary. What a crime to harvest them. I sure hope the great numbers return.
During the rainy season, the best time to be fishing here, we often catch a sailfish in-shore while bottom fishing for cubera snapper or trolling for wahoo. I love to see the face of an angler who thinks he’s got a snapper biting and finds a sailfish launching itself out of the water right behind the boat.
Sailfish like to be in 300 foot deep water. That’s a fact. Panama Baits will bring sails in even better than ballyhoo. I suppose the belly has oil it it that is released and the sails pick up on the scent. A belly bait works best in the first hour it’s out. It’s remarkable how a fresh bait will bring a sail in over others that have been out for a while.