Sailfish

The Gulf of Chiriquí is home to good numbers of sailfish. We see enough of them that we’re always ready with a live blue runner on a spinning.

If we see a free-jumping sail or a fish paddling along, we’ll cast the bait to the fish. Not only is this an effective way to catch them, the fight on a spinning rod is quite a bit of fun.

We also catch sailfish when trolling plugs offshore and sometimes when live baiting with bonito. Sailfish are great and they are widely distributed in our part of the world. Sometimes we see them in the vicinity of tuna schools with porpoises, sometimes they are around the tuna boats.

Catching sailfish is great. They jump often. Sails are fond of windshield wiping, putting their head and shoulders out of the water, waving their bills back and forth.

In addition to the visual nature of their fight, a boatside picture of a sailfish—with its distinctive dorsal fin fully extended—could well be one that will make your fishing picture wall.