Sailfish on a Fly: ‘It’s Just Something I Had to Do’

I know little-to-nothing about fly-fishing for billfish. My ignorance hasn’t kept me from pontificating that it doesn’t seem to be completely pure considering teasers dragged behind large diesel boats are often involved in luring the fish to the surface.

I recall one Makers Mark-fueled rant of mine comparing that type of angling to hunting baited bears, with dogs.

I stumbled on Peter Ottesen piece in the (San Joaquin) Record in California about a 69-year-old angler’s first billfish on the fly and, I have to admit, I got into it.

Consider this:

Suddenly, an 8-foot fish, with a huge dorsal fin and long bill, appeared within casting distance. The boat’s motor was shut off … The cast was true but the sailfish came straight at the fly, bill first, which would have allowed the huge fish to bite the line. Bockman pulled back the fly and cast again.

So, you finally get one of these monsters to the surface, literally out of the blue, it’s following your fly after a frantic cast, it’s about to bite, and … you have to pull your fly out because it’s not the right angle! That takes discipline I wonder if I can muster.

To his credit, the angler, Gary Bockman, got the fish and released it.

By the way, he started fly-fishing in 1968. Why did he want to get a sail on a fly rod?

“It was just something I had to do,” he told Ottesen.

Makes sense to me.

(Photo: Recordnet.com)