It is DEFINITELY Sailfish Time!

Report Date: January 24, 2011

It has been an incredible 2 weeks of fishing from my last report. I fished every single day but one and caught sailfish on every single trip. The first week the sailfishing was simply incredible. That week we had trips every day and for the most part had just one angler on board for almost every trip. When the fishing is hot and you only have one angler on board, it can be a lot of fun and challenging for me when we get multiples on (more than one sailfish on at one time). That was surely the case that week. We had so many quads (4 sailfish on at one time) with just one guy and for the most part we caught every fish out of almost every quad we hooked. We would first hook one sail and the angler would grab the rod, and then seconds would go by and we would get 2 or 3 more sails on. I would get tight on one and then stick it in the rod holder, my mate, if I had one that day, would get tight and stick another one in the rod holder and the fourth one we would do the same. As the fish are jumping all over the ocean, we would do our best to keep the lines separated and as the angler caught one fish, we would then give him the second rod and go from there. It is utter pandemonium and about as much fun as you can have. During one trip with one guy on board we hooked a quad and had another 6 fish swimming around the boat looking to get something to eat. We could have easily pitched more baits to them but that really would have been chaotic.
We had four trips with double digit releases and our best day that week was an amazing 15 sailfish caught out of 23 hookups. That trip was with a very long time customer and great friend Alan Kape. Alan and I have had some great trips together and this certainly ranks as one of them. I also had a great three day trip with Sam Fluorney and his guest Shawn and Matt. We had a great three day sailfish trip and hooked as many as 18 sailfish on one day and also caught wahoo, dolphin, bonitos and kingfish during those days.

The following week the sailfishing slowed down a little bit but we still caught as many as 6 in one day. We did have one day that we only caught one but did have three bites that day. A lot of great sailfishing depends on the conditions and a brisk north wind, with north current and blue water are the perfect conditions. When the conditions are less than ideal, you have to be able to change up your plan a little bit. You can look for freejumpers as we did in the last fishing report, but if no floppers are seen, then you can also slow troll live bait through the outriggers and that is what we did and managed to catch 4 sailfish that day. The conditions weren’t great so we changed it up a bit and were able to get results.

I wish every trip could result in double digit releases, but sometimes no matter what you try, the fish don’t cooperate. One thing you will get though is us trying as hard as we can through the whole trip to get everyone on fish. Thankfully, this has worked on practically every trip we have had and certainly for the past two weeks.

February is booking up quickly but I still have open dates. I also have a couple of dates open this week and another cold front is coming mid week so the end of the week is looking awesome for sailfishing. Give me a call and let’s get those trips booked and who knows the next quad might be yours.

Tight Lines,
Capt. Dean Panos

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