IF IT’S ACTION-PACKED GAME FISHING YOU’RE AFTER YOU JUST CAN’T GO PAST THE SAILFISH OF KUALA ROMPIN IN MALAYSIA. THERE ARE ONLY A FEW HOT SPOTS AROUND THE WORLD WHERE THESE BEAUTIFUL CREATURES EXIST IN LARGE NUMBERS, & THIS IS DEFINITELY ONE OF THEM.
Sailfish are the fastest fish in the ocean; they’ve been clocked leaping out of the water at more than 110km/h, which makes for a whole lot of fun when you’re hooked up to one on a screaming Saltiga and stickbait rod, as I’ve been numerous times over the last 2 years.
My Reel Adventures team had been lucky enough to be invited to again join up with Team Xzoga to fish the Royal Pahang International Billfish Tournament in the South China Sea.
33 teams from all over the world set the stage for this amazing two-day event.
The main method of catching sailfish in Malaysia is to use live baits hooked through the nose on a circle hook with spin reels and long stick bait rods. There are many different species of live baits and the sails eat most of them, so that every time you drop a sabiki it’s like a lucky dip - the key is to find out what the sailfish have been feeding on of late.
We headed out: Captain Steven Chong, Dennis Lee, Toby Kemp, and I, plus Wilson Tan from TST Tackle, our twin 175hp engines pushing us along at a cruising speed of 27 knots.
With a shotgun start to kick things off it’s a race for the FADs to pick up some live bait, but unfortunately we got plagued by small barracuda that tangled our lines and busted off our sinkers on nearly every drop ... not a good start to the competition for us, because time is the one thing you don’t have up your sleeve in this comp. The first boat to get baits and find a hot bite definitely has an advantage and on that first day that wasn’t going to be us. We finally got the tank full though, and headed out to where we’d seen fish the day before - but again our luck was down and when we arrived they’d moved on elsewhere.
The fish this year were not as aggressive on the bite as last year and it was harder to get hooked up; you had to keep the line running free from the spool until it had a chance to gobble it and then whack the bail arm over and hope the hook stuck. Any tension on the line and these fish would instantly spit the bait.
We headed out wider and finally came across a patch of fish. We tried a variety of live baits to see what was working the best and found that small herring were accounting for a lot of our hook-ups ... sailfish candy bars!! But at the end of Day One we’d only managed to release 4 sailfish, leaving us in 13th place.
Day Two: We’d heard a rumour that there was a big patch of fish the leading team had been on the day before; they’d released 19, so we took the risk and headed there, even though it was 33 miles away. Sure enough - the sailfish were there, and with about 7 boats fishing the same area it was time to get to work and try to claw our way up the rankings.
At one stage we had a triple hook-up on our boat - with our friends from Team Xzoga Singapore, fishing right alongside, hooked on a double as well! All 5 fish ended up between the two boats, only about 80 metres apart, jumping out of the water and crossing over and under lines. It was one of the most insane things I have seen on the water; I found myself waiting for the imminent carnage or bust-offs as we weaved around each other - but luckily we were all on our A game and with a bit of clever boat handling and shuffling we were able to get further apart and release 2 from the 3, with our team-mates going 2 from 2
Double and treble hook-ups are common with sailfish, making it difficult for the skipper to move the vessel which therefore usually remains still, leaving the anglers to run around the boat to follow the fish. This at times can be a real workout in the 30°+ degree heat of Rompin - add to that the fastest fish in the ocean screaming off with 150m of line on its first run, jumping out of the water and waving its bill all over the place, and you soon know you’re in fishing heaven! It can be hard at times to remember to turn the handle on the reel, you get so caught up watching the spectacular display they put on - they seem to spend as much time out of the water as they do peeling line off your reel.
We kept hooking up and when the bite died down we had 9 sailfish released – and then Denis hooked a monster that just wouldn’t give up. It fought more like a large marlin; we had it boat-side many times but just couldn’t turn its head, and then finally as we grabbed for the leader the fish broke free.
Competition rules required us to touch the bill so this one wasn’t going to count, and with us having to race 33 miles back to port and arrive before cut-off and disqualification it was time to leave the fishing grounds.
We’d managed to release 13 sailfish over the 2 days finishing up in 8th place, only 1 fish away from a podium finish; with the winning team having released 33 after finding that large patch of hungry sails on the first day it was always going to have been hard to catch up. There were a total of 297 sailfish released in the competition - and that’s pretty good game fishing as far as I’m concerned!
The tournament prizegiving was a night to remember at the Lanjut Beach Resort: with a large stage, red carpet, Malaysian dancing and singing it was an amazing night of local culture. They put on a huge buffet dinner after the prizegiving, and then all the teams mingled and danced the night away.
The sailfish at Kuala Rompin are not big in size but you can’t deny their beauty, incredible fighting spirit, breath-taking leaps, somersaults and tail dances; they leave your reel screaming for mercy! It’s an unprecedented adrenalin rush for an angler, and that’s what keeps us going back.
Here a few fun facts about this incredible species:
My Reel Adventures team had been lucky enough to be invited to again join up with Team Xzoga to fish the Royal Pahang International Billfish Tournament in the South China Sea.
33 teams from all over the world set the stage for this amazing two-day event.
The main method of catching sailfish in Malaysia is to use live baits hooked through the nose on a circle hook with spin reels and long stick bait rods. There are many different species of live baits and the sails eat most of them, so that every time you drop a sabiki it’s like a lucky dip - the key is to find out what the sailfish have been feeding on of late.
We headed out: Captain Steven Chong, Dennis Lee, Toby Kemp, and I, plus Wilson Tan from TST Tackle, our twin 175hp engines pushing us along at a cruising speed of 27 knots.
With a shotgun start to kick things off it’s a race for the FADs to pick up some live bait, but unfortunately we got plagued by small barracuda that tangled our lines and busted off our sinkers on nearly every drop ... not a good start to the competition for us, because time is the one thing you don’t have up your sleeve in this comp. The first boat to get baits and find a hot bite definitely has an advantage and on that first day that wasn’t going to be us. We finally got the tank full though, and headed out to where we’d seen fish the day before - but again our luck was down and when we arrived they’d moved on elsewhere.
The fish this year were not as aggressive on the bite as last year and it was harder to get hooked up; you had to keep the line running free from the spool until it had a chance to gobble it and then whack the bail arm over and hope the hook stuck. Any tension on the line and these fish would instantly spit the bait.
We headed out wider and finally came across a patch of fish. We tried a variety of live baits to see what was working the best and found that small herring were accounting for a lot of our hook-ups ... sailfish candy bars!! But at the end of Day One we’d only managed to release 4 sailfish, leaving us in 13th place.
Day Two: We’d heard a rumour that there was a big patch of fish the leading team had been on the day before; they’d released 19, so we took the risk and headed there, even though it was 33 miles away. Sure enough - the sailfish were there, and with about 7 boats fishing the same area it was time to get to work and try to claw our way up the rankings.
At one stage we had a triple hook-up on our boat - with our friends from Team Xzoga Singapore, fishing right alongside, hooked on a double as well! All 5 fish ended up between the two boats, only about 80 metres apart, jumping out of the water and crossing over and under lines. It was one of the most insane things I have seen on the water; I found myself waiting for the imminent carnage or bust-offs as we weaved around each other - but luckily we were all on our A game and with a bit of clever boat handling and shuffling we were able to get further apart and release 2 from the 3, with our team-mates going 2 from 2
Double and treble hook-ups are common with sailfish, making it difficult for the skipper to move the vessel which therefore usually remains still, leaving the anglers to run around the boat to follow the fish. This at times can be a real workout in the 30°+ degree heat of Rompin - add to that the fastest fish in the ocean screaming off with 150m of line on its first run, jumping out of the water and waving its bill all over the place, and you soon know you’re in fishing heaven! It can be hard at times to remember to turn the handle on the reel, you get so caught up watching the spectacular display they put on - they seem to spend as much time out of the water as they do peeling line off your reel.
We kept hooking up and when the bite died down we had 9 sailfish released – and then Denis hooked a monster that just wouldn’t give up. It fought more like a large marlin; we had it boat-side many times but just couldn’t turn its head, and then finally as we grabbed for the leader the fish broke free.
Competition rules required us to touch the bill so this one wasn’t going to count, and with us having to race 33 miles back to port and arrive before cut-off and disqualification it was time to leave the fishing grounds.
We’d managed to release 13 sailfish over the 2 days finishing up in 8th place, only 1 fish away from a podium finish; with the winning team having released 33 after finding that large patch of hungry sails on the first day it was always going to have been hard to catch up. There were a total of 297 sailfish released in the competition - and that’s pretty good game fishing as far as I’m concerned!
The tournament prizegiving was a night to remember at the Lanjut Beach Resort: with a large stage, red carpet, Malaysian dancing and singing it was an amazing night of local culture. They put on a huge buffet dinner after the prizegiving, and then all the teams mingled and danced the night away.
The sailfish at Kuala Rompin are not big in size but you can’t deny their beauty, incredible fighting spirit, breath-taking leaps, somersaults and tail dances; they leave your reel screaming for mercy! It’s an unprecedented adrenalin rush for an angler, and that’s what keeps us going back.
Here a few fun facts about this incredible species:
- Name – Pacific Sailfish
- Scientific name - Istiophorus platypterus
- Sailfish reproduce by spawning; a female can produce over 1 million eggs and fertilized eggs can hatch 36 hours later.
- Sailfish start out about 1/8 inch long and grow at a very fast rate - up to 1.2 – 1.5 metres in the first year.
- Sailfish leap out of the water at speeds up to 110km/h, making them the fastest fish in the ocean.
- Sailfish use their large sail like a fin on their backs when swimming on the surface, and also to herd baitfish.