SAILFISH & THE OLD MAN.

This article was published in the April 2003 issue of Rod and Line Fishing Magazine.

Five fence foil-like bills were slicing through the water surface. “Sails!” gasped Thang. We sprang into action station immediately. Suddenly a sailfish lunged with opened mouth and landed on Thang’s trolled skirt. His Tiagra screamed its protest. Looking at his sweat drenched, reddish puffed up face, I was thinking why he was paying so much money to torture himself like this. Standing up and fighting a sail was already very taxing on him. Add on the wildly rocking boat, it was a wonder how he could keep his cool. Tan immediately fitted the gimbal belt on his good friend and only then could we see some relaxation on his face. The 22kg sail was tagged and released alive without been lifted out of the water.

James helping to tag Tan's sails. It's advisable to tag the fish in the water.

The fierce action followed by many false alarms. Every time we trolled pass the hotspots, outstretched fins or bills of the sails could be seen. Sometimes the jerking of the rod tips would be followed by the reels’ alarms going off for a few seconds. All the false alarms really kept us on our toes.

The result of not using a gimbal belt.

Exactly one hour later, Tan was the next lucky one. His Trinidad jigger TN30 handled the initial run brilliantly. As the boat turned towards the direction of the sail, Tan was cranking like mad to gain line as well as to keep his line taut. When the sail was near the boat, it suddenly sounded. Now Tan was in for some hard work, I thought to myself. True enough, he was heaving and panting as though running a marathon.

The folly of not using glove while holding the bill.

Once the fish went under the other side of the boat with the line scrapping the hull. He had the presence of mind to dip his rod into the sea so as to prevent his line from being cut. Somehow our taikong managed to swing the boat to the left and ease up the tension. Another sail of about 19.5kg was tagged and released to fight another day. As Tan was using 25lb line, the fight was prolonged thus he had to drag the sail through the water a bit longer to revive it.

Our method of trolling to was to pay out four lines with skirts at staggered intervals. This was to prevent lines and lures from tangling with each other. Right in the middle was our bunch of teasers. The teasers were always the first to be examined or attacked by the sails, thus proving the importance of their roles.

As soon as our skirts were let out after the release of the sails, James connected a reasonably big fellow. He never give me a drink for helping to wipe sweat off his forehead (Luckily, he is not a rich Datuk, or else people would think I was bodeking him). Seeing the way he struggled to hold his rod, I helped him to put Thang’s gimbal belt (he forgot to bring his own). To our horror, no matter how I adjusted the belt, it just could not fit James! In the end he had no choice but to jam his rod but into his tummy. Poor James, the blue black mark left on his stomach looked as though he had been kicked by a horse. Needless to say, he was bragging and showing it off to our other friends who did not go on this trip.

Always use glove while holding the bill of bill fish. This one shown here is cheap and gives a good grip.

After many slashing by the sails’ bills, my adrenaline finally gushed out because of the TLD’s alarm sounding off. Ten seconds later, everything went silent .When everyone else was getting fish after fish, and you only got false alarms, it would somehow get to your nerves.

I had my fair share of fishless days to let such bad luck affect me on a normal day. But after James had tagged and released his 29kg sail, he was singing and crooning like crazy (not that he can sing, you know). I knew I would be in for a sleepless night if I did not catch one fast.

The three of them seemed to be hogging all the sails. After Thang had released another of bout 12.5kg, James had his circle hook bent open by another. When the sail chomped down his trolled dead kembong, he free spooled for about ten seconds (but it somehow felt like hours), before pushing his lever to strike. When the line tightened, the sails headed for Timbuktu. It tail-walked for some distance before slamming down onto the water. When it left the water for a second walk, the hook pulled out.

The tag secured on the tag pole with a rubber band for easier handling.

By now, my self-built rod with an image of a sailfish, meticulously woven on with loving care was the butt of all the jokes. “To catch sailfish, you must weave images of garfish or rabbit fish lah,” James gleefully dug at me. Though fuming I could only ‘Yan’ (meaning tolerate with patience, in Cantonese).

I did not know whether it was a good virtue or not, but that word seemed to appear in most training centers in all the martial art flicks. I guessed it should be good, for my ‘Yan’ paid off with a few taps on my rod. It was followed by the sweetest sound that I had been waiting to hear all day….. my reel‘s alarm going off. 

This was the type of retractable tape used for measuring the length and girth. Easily obtainable from embroidery shops.

Praying under my breath (I had no choice) I heaved a sigh of relief when my sail leapt out of the water, tail-walked for quite a distance before splashing back into the sea. Out it came again.

This sail never seemed to stop. After all its disco dancing, I finally settled down to a long drawn out pump and wind. You see, this fellow took out quite some line. Surprisingly, I took only a short time to subdue this 33kg sail. At long last I had my name on the tagging report card. From then on until nightfall there were no more hookups, thus we settled down for our meals.

Our taikong woke us up at 5.30am to prepare for our battle with the GTs now. As soon as there was light, we let out four bibbed lures. Though we trolled round Jarak many times, the GTs did not seem to be around. Changing back to skirts and dead baits, we waited with renewed anticipations. Surprisingly Sunday was a boring day. Other than releasing a small sail of 17kg by Tan, there was no more action. By midday, we had no choice but to retrieve our lures and headed for home.

The result on this trip was a lot better than all our previous trips. We were proud that none of the sails were brought up to the deck for photographs.

These were the circle hooks we used. James' hook (lower one) opened up, thus losing the sail

All measurements were done in the water (it took some acrobatic balancing to do that as side of the boat was quite high). This method is highly recommended as the sails should be subjected to as little trauma and stress as possible.

On our way back, our taikong, Pak Intan, wisely summed up the scenario on our Malaysian sport fishing scene.

Most of our local boats are not built for sport-fishing, let alone for catch and release operations for big fish.

“If you fellows want to enjoy fishing for sails, you better do it now before the professionals find a use for the fish. Even the todaks are not spared now as the price is RM4.50 per kilo! Sooner or later, the sailfish will be wiped out unless those entrusted with the power step in to conserve them”.