Fly Fishing For Sailfish

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The other day I was talking with a good friend to whom all fishing, fly fishing for big game species included, is dull unless it is in pursuit of Moby Dick. I could explain to him that Moby Dick was a mammal and hence pursuing it should not technically be called fishing, but I let that slide because I deemed it more compelling to address his insinuation that there is no excitement in any sporting pursuit unless your quarry can impose certain mortal risk to the sportsman himself.

?Frankly, I can't see where the excitement is in catching big fishes,? my friend said sympathetically. ?You'd think it was marvelous if the fish jumped back and forth over the boat with swords on the ends of their noses. Tell me where you get the trill out if it.?

I feel compelled to explain.

In the first place, the South China Sea is probably the last wild country there is left in this part of the world. Once you are out of sight of land and of the other boats you are more alone than you can ever be hunting. In a day's fishing you may see the sea oily flat in in a dead calm; or you may see high, rolling blue hills much taller than your boat when a tropical storm approaches, so that sometime you will see three great hills of water with your fish jumping from the top of the farthest one. If you turned you boat to chase your fish without weighing your chance, one of those breaking crest could roar down in on you with a thousand tons of water and you would hunt no more elephants nor big tusked boars.

The pursuit of billfish with a fly rod presents another set of challenge. A fly fishermen is not satisfied with merely deceiving a non-discerning fish into eating a baited hook, but challenging the Alpha fish in the school for a fight!

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?Very instructive,? said the friend. ?But where does the trill come in??

The trill comes when you are standing at the stern of the boat watching your hookless teaser baits leaping along the surface and then behind one you see a long dark shadow wing up and then a spear thrust out followed by an eye and head and dorsal fin.

?Sailfish! Left teaser!? Dominic, my fishing guide yells as the grabbed the teaser rod and stamps his feet, signaling to the rest of the crew that a fish is raised. Dominic removed the teaser rod from its holder, and there comes the shadow again, fast as the shadow of a plane moving over the water, and the spear, head, fin and shoulders smash out of the water attacking the hookless bait. Dominic keeps the fish interested by working the teaser bait and reel it within casting distance. The fly is present while the teaser bait is yank instantaneously out of the water such that the fly is the only visible edible object within the fishes field of view.

What follows is a ferocious attack on the fly, then a strike by the hunter to set the hook into the bony mouth, and you hear the click of the reel as line pulls out and the long bight of the line whishes through the water as the fish turns and you hold the rod, you feel it double and the butt kicks you in the belly as you come back hard and feels his weight, as you strike him again for good measure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVrhaMneXMs

Then the heavy fly rod arc-ing out towards the fish, and the reel in an electric drill zinging scream, the Sailfish leaps clear and long, silver in the sun, long, round as a hog's head and banded with lavender stripes and when he goes up into the water, it throws a column of spray like an exploding shell.

Then in a series of jumps like a greyhound he heads to the East and standing up, you follow him in the boat, the line taut as a banjo string and little drops of water dripping from it untill you finally get the belly of the line clear of that drag against the water and have a straight pull against the fish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf1J1foaQXw

But there are not many known places on Earth where Sailfish congregate in one location in sufficient numbers for fly fishermen to target them to a reasonable probability of landing one on a fly rod. If the boat crew and the fly fishermen did everything right, they will be lucky to land 1 fish out of every 10 and follow the teaser bait. And for 10 Sailfish to come to the teaser, there probably needs to be at least a few hundreds in the area in order to land that ONE FISH on a fly rod!

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Some world class locations that fly fishermen from around the Globe flock to fly fish for Sailfish includes Broome in Western Australia, Cabo San Lucas in Mexico and Quepos in Costa Rica. But from what I had experienced, non of these above locations can compare to Rompin on the East Coast of Malaysia in terms of numbers of Sailfish that can be found congregating in a single location at any one time.

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Rompin as a Sailfish sport-fishing destination was discovered in the late 1990s, where one may land 20-30 Sailfish in a single day on live baits. Thousands of Sailfish congregates East of Rompin in the South China Sea each year from March to May and then from September to November gorging themselves on hugh schools of Anchovies. The March to May run consist mainly of smaller but very aggressive 30-50lb fish while the bigger but wiser 70-90lb fish are more frequently found in the September run. Sports fishermen from all around Asia and Australia flock to Rompin every year when the Sailfish are in season. We are fortunate that conservation effort such as catch and release and limitation on commercial fishing is practiced at Rompin by and large to enable the sport fishery to thrive.

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Ironically, targeting Sailfish with a fly rod had not quite caught on among sports fishermen in Asia despite the world class Sail-fishery at Rompin. When in season, a properly equipped fly fishing boat with an experienced crew can expect to raise between 50-70 Sailfish to the teaser each day. A fly fishermen would probably get bites from 10-20 Sails on the fly and perhaps land a handful on an average day. Some blue ribbon days will see more than 100 Sailfish relentlessly attacking the teaser baits and anything else you drop in the water.

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Despite the un-precedented congregation of Sailfish, only one credible out-fitter is equipped and experienced in targeting Sailfish on fly at Rompin. FishZone Sportfishing (http://www.fishzone.com.sg/), an outfitter that specializes in fly fishing in Rompin for Sailfish is usually heavily booked each year by clients from Australia and Japan. Fishzone head guide, Dominic Pereira, told me that he first fished Rompin16 years ago, started guiding and training his boat crew there since 2005, and had observed that the Sailfish population had actually been improving steadily since the early years.

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I had the pleasure of fishing with Dominic over 3 days in May, and managed to tease up a total of 155 Sailfish to the boat within casting distance, had 51 bites, 21 positive hookups and landed 10. These results over 3 days is easily one order of magnitude better than what I had seen in Broome and Cabo San Lucas, where I would be lucky to raise 20 fish over 3 days to the teaser. (I had never fished Costa Rica so I could not do an objective comparison there). Dominic's best record was a magical September day where an Australian client raised 120 Sails to the boat and landed 16 in a single day!

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No, Sailfishing with a fly rod is not elephant hunting. But I get a kick out of it. When you have a family and child you do not have to look for danger. But there is great pleasure in being on the Sea, in the unknown wild suddenness of a great fish; in his life and death which he lives for you in an hour while your strength is harnessed to his; and there is satisfaction in conquering this thing which rules the sea it lives in.