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Keith Arthur

In the more relaxed setting of a day's fishing, the sails put on their full display with some amazing leaps and other piscine gymnastics.

Keith Arthur
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You may have discovered this already but, due to the brilliance of TV, a few mirrors and some smoke, I haven't actually been in the studio for the past fortnight.

I hope you enjoyed the Alan Scotthorne Special and the Fish'O'Mania Special: I certainly enjoyed them and whilst you watched those I was in the tropical climate of Key West, Florida, on my annual 'boys' trip'.

Unfortunately it is now turning into an 'old boys' pilgrimage as I was one of the younger members of the party. That doesn't stop us fishing every day, from 7.30am when the boats leave the dock, until 3.30 or later when they return.

The weather this year was tremendous, with virtually clear skies throughout and only two days when the wind made things awkward.

Unfortunately before we arrived the Keys experienced a deep cold front which dropped the inshore water temperatures by 6C, from 28C to 22C. That had a dramatic effect on some of the fish which, although there in MASSIVE numbers, simply refused to eat much of the time.

Also, with fuel prices rocketing much faster and further than here, the guides are reluctant to travel too far without charging for the extra fuel so that adds appreciably to the cost.

A trip to the Gulf of Mexico to fish for tuna, for example, may add an extra $350 to the daily bill: not an amount to be sneezed at.

Superb time

All that aside, we had a superb time. Everyone had at least one 'day-of-a-lifetime' with some truly magnificent fish being taken.

As so often happens, one of the very best fish showed up on the final day when Harry Warren released a lemon shark of over 200lbs; a genuine monster.

My highlight was catching some sailfish that I could actually fight. In the past my 'sails' have been caught in tournament conditions, when we try to release the fish as soon as possible.

That means chasing them in the boat and reaching over and grabbing the leader in a matter of minutes, sometime seconds. In the more relaxed setting of a day's fishing, the sails put on their full display with some amazing leaps and other piscine gymnastics.

I have just seen a short preview of some of our filming - you can see it on this week's Tight Lines (Friday 9th May) - and the action is simply awesome. Only watching it now do I truly appreciate just how lucky we are.

Taster

As a taster, I'll run you through a day chasing the ballerina of the sea. First job is to catch bait, which means threadfin herring and blue runners. The herring hang around some of the channel markers and wreck buoys, feeding just under the surface on fry and baby shrimp.

We catch them on Sabiki rigs: like mackerel feathers but much smaller, on size 12 hooks or so, with plastic rather than feather as lures. One problem is that king mackerel and barracuda know what we are up to and often nick a whole string of fish as we bring them to the boat.

Blue runners are small members of the jack family and hooking one of over a pound in weight often means it making off with the hook, so hard do they fight. I've never hooked an entire string of six and remain eternally grateful as I couldn't imagine what that would feel like.

The baits, once caught, are retained in a built-in livebait well in the boat, with fresh seawater pumped in continuously to keep them in ace condition.

Rather than hook the baits on, as we have done in the past, we now 'bridle' the baits by pulling an elastic band through their 'nose' with a baiting needle.

The hook is then twisted into the band, holding the fish tight to the bend of the hook. This has several advantages, the main two being that the fish remains alive much longer and also allows it to be released unharmed (believe it or not!) should it not be eaten by something nasty, such as a shark, barracuda, king mackerel or; or something nice, like a sailfish, wahoo or tuna.

Simplicity

The tackle is simplicity itself. We mostly use large 'spinning' (fixed spool) reels loaded with 20lb mono or 40lb braid, a 10ft leader of 60lb fluorocarbon and a size 5/0 circle hook.

Some captains advocate a 1ft length of single strand wire, 90lb test, above the hook to prevent bite-offs from toothy critturs. It doesn't seem to deter sails.

We hold the rod, feeling for bites and they are not difficult to determine! Usually the livebait gets 'nervous', swimming agitatedly to escape whatever is about to eat it.

Then the hit itself often entails an urgent and powerful run, sometimes stripping 300m of line from the reel in seconds. By now it is usually possible to have some idea of what's causing the bite: sailfish will frequently jump and tailwalk, tuna dive steeply and their tail can be felt drumming on the leader.

Sharks, king mackerel and barracuda on the other hand are commonly gone: biting through the line or taking the tail half of the bait. Anything that stays on for a minute can be relied on to make the trip but the release may take an hour or so as none of those fish give up.

During our trip we had three tuna, the local species being 'blackfin'. These are the smallest members of the real tuna family, with a record weight of just under 50lb.

They certainly don't fight like it though, circling below the boat as the angler tries desperately to gain line back on the reel, a yard at a time. The best tuna of the trip fell to Ross Nursey at 32lb, an excellent fish. I hooked one and lost it!

Spectacular

I did manage a few sailfish though, including far and away the most spectacular jumper I've ever hooked. It tailwalked 75% of the way round the boat until we managed to get it close enough to unhook and release: a wonderful experience for everyone, except the threadfin herring.

One monkey was removed from my back this year: after 15 attempts I managed to catch a 'keeper' black grouper.

These hard-fighting bottom dwellers have a nasty habit of finding a sharp rock, or hole in the reef, when hooked and landing them can be a genuine trial. The one I got came when tarpon fishing in Key West Harbour, of all places, and followed on close behind a 'keeper' (big enough to legally keep and eat) gag grouper.

I also managed a 'new' species of grouper for me: a 'yellowfin grouper' that came bottom fishing in the deeper water 50 miles from Key West, towards the Dry Tortugas. We had a wonderful day down there with grouper following mutton snapper following grouper.

Then on the way back, about 35 miles out, we stopped on a noted rockpile mark to see if we could find some amberjacks. No matter how many of these fish have been caught previously the power in their fight still comes as a great surprise.

On hooking they power-dive for the bottom, then 'dog' it out there for a while, until fierce pressure draws them up maybe 30 feet.

They take exception to that though and dive down again. This is repeated any number of times, depending on size. I had a 50lber that took best part of half an hour of maximum effort on my part; my buddy, Roy Marlow, had a 65lber that took measurably longer.

One, at most two, of these bullies in a day is enough for anyone. I'll almost be glad when I'm too old to try - not really, I love every single minute of the torture. In fact, I love it so much I'll be doing it all again next year, all things being equal.

I hope you enjoy/ed the preview. Make sure you don't miss the whole thing.

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