GO LIGHT FOR BROADBILLS

Just a short decade ago, only a small cadre of anglers knew the secrets to consistently catching broadbill swordfish after sunrise. Sure, occasional sunning fish were caught on the surface, and the seeds of daytime swordfish deep-drops were sewn off Venezuela in the 1990s, but it wasn’t until 2009, when Capt. R.J. Boyle brought me offshore for Marlin’s first article on daytime swordfishing that this technique began to take hold.

“My first catches were almost accidental,” he says about his earliest days dropping baits down 1,700 feet in 4 knots of current off Hillsboro Inlet, Florida. “I didn’t even know what a swordfish bite looked like. At first, I thought something was pecking at my bait. Then I jumped a few off, so I knew they were swords.”

After many months of trial and error, Boyle learned how to keep his baits at the bottom and reliably hook swordfish. While he is quick to acknowledge the contributions of others, particularly Vic Gaspeny and the Stanczyk family, owners of Bud N’ Mary’s Marina in Islamorada, Florida, Boyle was the first to freely share his hard-gained knowledge.

PIONEERING TECHNIQUES

Electric reels dominated the early days of daytime swordfishing. “I wouldn’t have used them if I didn’t have to,” Boyle says, “but we never would have developed the techniques we use today without electric reels.” Now, some 14,000 swordfish drops wiser, he conquers daytime broadbills by hand-cranking them on light tackle.

In some ways, less water drag on 30- or 40-pound-test braided line