Kuala Rompin Sailfishing - Part 1

Finally, came the day when we would head out to venture on to the high seas in search of the famous Indo-pacific Sailfish of Kuala Rompin. The Sailfish are on a seasonal migratory voyage from the waters of Japan. They usually arrive beginning in April, with mostly smaller specimens. The larger ones would arrive around August & last till late October. The average size of sail caught here are between 30 to 50kg. Make no mistake about it, you will need heavy tackles & quality gear to wrestle these beasts into submission.

We started journey from Shah Alam at 2:30am, arrived at jetty around 6:30am. Had breakfast, met with our fishing guide, Mr Hafiz, we got a safety briefing and fishing tips from our tekong before we venture out at 8:00am sharp.

Scenic view of the Rompin estuarine. From here, it would be an hour's journey to the nearest FAD (fish aggregating device), locally known as unjam where we will jig for live baits.

First stop, to jig for baitfish. The guide took us to an unjam where we caught loads of bream, scads, squids, baby groupers & sardines using Sabiki jigs. We even caught a baby Barracuda & a Trevally. When the bait well was almost full, we wasted no time heading out to another spot, this time to nearby island called Pulau Berhala to hunt for the sails.

Sailfishing is not as easy as most people think. In fact, I underestimated the power of this fish as I only spooled my reels with 30lb braid. I lost 2 fish in a row due to busted lines. The fish was just overpowering. Luckily, I brought along an extra spool of 300 yard, 50lb mono line to re-spool my main rod. Being first timers, we had many failures to set the hook or even tackle the fish properly resulting in a few busted lines, straighten hook & fish throwing our hooks.

Live bait sailfishing is quite simple to rig actually. Nothing fancy stuffs, just hook, a long length of tough mono or FC leader & the mainline. Depending on the time of day & the conditions that you are fishing in, the use of a balloon as float to prevent the live bait from swimming below is necessary to give the right presentation. Sails are mid to top water predator. They hunt in a pack & will go after any injured fish near them.

After making the right adjustments to our rigs & myself changing to fresh line using 50lb mono, did I had a solid hook up. In fact, me & Daniel had double hookup on the boat. The boatmen & his assistant was all over the place trying their best to assist us to land our fish. It was pure chaos, something anglers loves to witness! Fighting the sails is no easy ride. I was hook onto a raging sail estimated to be well over 50kg & you've heard before, sailfishes have been recorded to reach speeds of up to 120km/h. It took me well over 20 mins to land it. Talk about pure muscle power.

Next one to land a sail was Daniel who fought his fish for nearly 20 mins too. Since he was using a better quality set up, his experience was less tiring than mine but then again, his sail was smaller. Muahaha. His catch was estimated to be well over 30 kg. His sail was most entertaining as it kept surfacing & jumping out of the water trying to dislodge the hook but in the end, Daniel wrestle it onto the boat & got his 'golden pose'. After Daniel's catch, we had no further hook and by 1pm, we headed back to the unjam for a lunch break & jig for more live bait.

After a simple lunch of Nasi lemak, again! we headed back to Pulau Berhala. Just after 2pm, the third sail was caught by Lawrence. His rigged bait suddenly dived pulling his balloon down almost immediately. He waited for about 10 secs, when his reel started screaming, it was time to strike to set the hook. Almost immediately, the sail jumped into the air & did all sorts of acrobatic moves to try dislodge the hook. Our friend fought it slow & steady with his PENN Battle 6000 spooled with 60lb braid. There was just no escape for this one.

At around 3:30 pm, the skies suddenly darkened, hinting that a storm was brewing. The boatmen told us to pack up & get ready to leave as fishing was no longer safe. We hightailed back to jetty as fast as we could. That was the end of our day's fishing.

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