Tuna Balling Bait and Kitefishing For Sails

Ron and Toni Gilbert along with Jim and Viv Hollomon came over from the west coast to join Wes and I on the L&H for a full day of sailfishing. There had been a lot of small bait offshore in the mornings, so our plan was to look offshore for the sails in the morning and then kite fish in the afternoon. After baitfishing we moved offshore to about six hundred feet and started getting a few tunas on our lures. Then off in the distance I saw one of the biggest flocks of birds I have ever seen. As we got closer we hooked tunas on every rod. After boating the fish we steered toward the birds and from the tower I could see the tunas had the small goggle-eyes and tinker mackerals in such a tight ball that it turned the cobalt blue gulfstream water a yellowish color. The bait were climbing on top of each other trying to escape the ravenous blackfin and skipjack tuna. There were so many birds that a friend later told me that it was difficult to see our boat through the mass of feeding sea gulls and frigate birds. I backed the L&H up to the baitball and Wes would scoop up hundreds of the tiny baits at a time with the dipnet. After we filled the baitwell with countless little live baits we simply began to catch the tunas at will. As fast as the bait hit the water you had a tuna on. Then we found what we were looking for, a sailfish joined the tuna in the frenzy. Wes threw a bait to the sail and seconds later the L&H was backing down in pursuit of the greyhounding sailfish. We released the beautiful sail and our plan seemed to be coming together. For the next couple of hours our team caught the tunas until everyone had enough. The fishbox was full, Wes was exhausted, the tackle was in shambles, we had no choice but to leave the fish biting. There was simply no more room to put them and our anglers were too tired to think of catching any more. I ran to the south where a couple boats were seeing sailfish. From my perch in the tower I saw a sailfish grab another boats kite bait but the fish didn't get hooked and continued to swim past the other boat. I positioned the L&H in front of the sailfish and Wes threw out two spinners. We hooked a double header of sails and released both of them. It was a great feeling to be in the right place at the right time and taking advantage of opportunities like that are what separate good days from great ones! We continued south and put the kites our for an hour or so and had a few more shots at sails and released two of them. Our friends the Gilberts and Hollomons had fished in Cost Rica and got three sails so it felt really good to almost double that in our own backyard!