TOUCH AND GO

• For sailfish fishermen, it’s a recurring dream: There he is! Left teaser… It’s a sail! But it’s not always as easy as the captain pulling in the squid chain and the angler getting a picture-perfect bite 10 feet behind the boat. Really, that scenario is just a small percentage of the bites we get from these wily and sometimes sneaky creatures. So let’s take a closer look at the touch-and-go method we employ when feeding a dead bait to an Atlantic sailfish on the troll.

Many factors go into a successful drop-back and hookup when encountering these agile and explosive little critters. Smaller and slightly faster than their Pacific cousins, feeding an Atlantic sailfish is like dealing with a whole different animal. One of the first steps