A Reel Bait and Switch
3/22/2006 7:24:47 PM by Susan Cocking
You could call Sandy Moret the Don Quixote of the Florida Keys. Just as the fictional Spanish hero tilted at windmills, Moret – operator of Florida Keys Outfitters – launched a tournament five years ago to catch and release Atlantic sailfish on fly rod.
This is a lot harder than most nonanglers think. Unlike its Pacific cousin, which falls victim to goofy-looking clumps of pink chicken feathers at the rate of 20-plus per day in Costa Rica and Guatemala, the Atlantic sail is fast, neurotic and suspicious and doesn’t suffer foolish prey imitations easily.
Said Miami attorney Pat Ford, who holds the Florida record for sailfish on fly rod (551/2 pounds): “The Pacific sailfish is an amberjack with a point on its nose. The Atlantic sailfish is mucho smarter. They come up – one pass of the tease – cast your fly. You’ve got one shot, and they’re gone. It can only be done if the fish is stupid, hot and hungry enough.”
Moret knew all that, but he wanted to have a tournament anyway. He thought it would be interesting for the Keys’ sportfishing brain trust to improve techniques for fooling the wily spindlebeaks with concoctions of fur and feathers. In 2001, the contest’s inaugural year, Moret got 14 boats to sign up. None caught any fish at all.
“The first year, I thought we wrote it off,” Moret recounted recently. “At the [awards] banquet, I said, ‘I guess this is the end of the sailfish tournament,’ and everybody started screaming, ‘NO!’ “
So the Islamorada Invitational Flyrod Sailfish Championship continued each year, with a few more sails caught and released. Last January’s contest produced the most ever – 11 hookups, with nine brought to the boat and released among 17 boats over two days. The atmosphere at the awards banquet at the Islamorada Fishing Club was one of jubilation.
“Is this the weirdest tournament in the Florida Keys, or what?” Moret asked the crowd to roars of laughter.
The winning team – for the second year in a row – was the crew aboard captain Robbie Dixon’s Islamorada charterboat Challenger – Dixon; mates Chris Jones and Josh Davis; and anglers Craig Reagor and Jeffrey Dickman. They got two fish to the boat and one quick release, all on the final day.
Under the rules, sails brought in and held by the bill to extract the fly count more points than fish that jump off right after the leader touches the tip of the rod.
Dixon said the key component in their back-to-back victories was successful execution of bait-and-switch: attracting sailfish with daisy-chain stringers of live bally hoo; yanking the stringers out of the water when the sail is within casting range (about 30 feet or so); then casting out and stripping in the fly. The team held a practice day on the eve of the tournament.
“I don’t think the fly is so important, or the bally hoo,” Dixon said. “It’s when to get the fly out, when to stop it. You only have two seconds to get the fly out when the fish is hot. But they’d probably eat [deli] chicken if you moved it at the right time.”
Getting to that point requires plenty of preparation. The crew must catch and keep alive several dozen bally hoo to use on the teasers. I rode with captain Randy Towe and his two anglers – Ford and Miami light tackle guide/fishing show host Rick Murphy on the 43-foot Quit Yer Bitchin’ – on the second day of the tournament.
It took us so long to collect enough ‘hoos for our teasers that three boats were already hooked up with sails on fly before we began slow-trolling.
Once armed with bait, crews must locate hungry sails crashing bait on the surface. This could happen anywhere from 20 feet deep on the reef to more than 200 feet deep offshore.
And – oh yeah – your tackle had better be rigged correctly. According to Ford, 12-weight rods with large-diameter reels are preferred – “not so much for the line capacity, but for the retrieve ratio.”
Tournament rules required 16-pound tippet. Ford’s reels held clear, weight-forward, mono-core tarpon-type fly line with 60-pound fluorocarbon base leader and a 40-pound shock tippet.
“That’s pretty light, but we figure it’s better to worry about it later than not get a bite,” he explained.
His flies are works of art: glimmering bally hoo-like creations that you want to hang up in your living room rather than tie to the end of a tippet.
Quit Yer Bitchin’ attracted only one really eager sailfish on the last day of the tournament. Late in the afternoon in 120 feet of water off Conch Reef, the fish popped up behind a six-’hoo daisy-chain stringer that Towe put out from the bridge.
To draw the sail closer, mate John Wargo cast a single, hookless bally hoo tied to the line with copper wire. But the bait fell off. Towe screamed for someone to reel in the long teaser with three live bally hoo. I grabbed it and started reeling fast, and I could see the sail chasing it.
Wargo took it from me, and let the sail taste it. Then he pulled it free of the sail’s clamped jaws and brought it closer. The fish’s blue dorsal fin stuck up above the surface as it chased the daisy chain.
When it was about 20 feet from the transom, Murphy cast the fly. Time came to a standstill as everyone watched the sail dart for it. But it only batted at bait and faded off.
Wargo teased it in again with the three-bagger, and once again, it found the fly, but it would not bite the hook. Then it disappeared for good. The whole manic episode probably lasted less than two minutes.
Murphy reeled in and examined the fly and leader.
“Not a scratch on the leader,” he pronounced. “He hit the fly twice with the tip of his bill.”
That was the end of it; the crew went fishless for the two days except for a small dolphin.
Murphy said he intends to keep trying.
“I’ve caught 117 [Pacific] sails on fly, but not a single one in this state,” he said.
What, specifically, is the allure, I wanted to know.
“Well, it’s like going to the ballet and, right in the middle of it, they turn it into a punk rock slam dance,” he replied. “It’s to do something different that people don’t do.”
Catching an elusive Atlantic sailfish at the Islamorada Invitational might seem a quixotic quest, but with a bit of luck and trickery, hauling one in can be done.