For several years now I have been an acute student of sword fishing.  I've talked to everyone that I thought knew something.  I've read all that I can and visited special sword fishing forums to gather information. Nighttime, daytime, I've tried them all without success.  I've watched others bag their sword, but my first was still to come.  Well, my luck changed this past Monday.  I now have the rigging, weights and make shift tackle to make it work. 

Daytime swording started in Venezuela many years ago with an angler dropping a bag of rocks to get his bait  some 1,300- 2,000' deep.  Enter Captain Richard Stanzack of Bud & Mary's Marina in Islamorada.  He, with friend Vic Gaspeny, plus his sons, started the American version of this difficult fishery.  Slowly, word caught on about daytime sword fishing and its potential.  Folks were very secretive at first, but info made the rounds and now it is undertaken in South Florida and even in the Gulf of Mexico with a few other spots being tried around the world.

Generally, electric reels or electric/manual reels like the Daiwa Dendoh MP3000 at $3,150.00 are used.  1,200-2,000 yards of 80# spectra is normal and a drop weight of 8-16# is employed.  Lead stick weights, large coated rebar, or concrete weights are used.  There is much controversy about whether it is sporting to use an electric reel for this fishing.  Make your own decision, but many anglers use the electric function to raise the weight, but fight the fish in the conventional manual mode.

I can't afford a new $3,000.00 reel with all the fixings, so I am using my Penn Intl 50VSW 2-speed.  I'm on the light side of tackle as many anglers use 70 and 80 size reels.  Without electric, some people designed a break-away weight system that would allow easier retrieval of all the line.  Myself and neighbor Rusty Bonnert have modified our International reels to allow the use of a drill to retrieve line.  A battery drill will not lift the weight for long, so we are using low speed 1/2" 110V drills.  Rusty has a gen set on his Carolina Classic, but I'm using a 3,000 watt peak inverter on my center console.  Its Rube Goldberg engineering, but it works and saves a lot of money.  Additionally, many say the the drag system on the big Diawa is not as good as the larger Internationals.

OK- now for the story...We left shortly after 6:30am and headed way out to our deep water spot.  Rusty in his boat and myself and friend Scott Kennedy in mine.  We took a variety of baits, none were squid.  Barracuda, lady fish, spanish mackerel and bonito.  We both caught our fish on bonito bellys.   I made four drifts.  The current was against the wind and movement was slow at about .7kt.  We started in 2,000' and fished until about 1,400'.  Our fish came on the last drop.  During our other drifts we thought we had bottom snags, but who knows...maybe these were fish also.

Rusty and his team hooked up on the first drift with a 275# fish.  Oddly, they were retrieving their weight when the fish hit and it zipped line rapidly off.  They fought it from the chair, foot by foot.  With leader almost in hand the sword ripped another 800' of line out.  Finally, at boat side, the sword is attacked by an even larger mako.  The mako eats the tail off of the sword and things are now going wild on the boat.  They get the sword through the tuna door and pitch another bait to the shark.  Hook up and another fight of about 1.5 hours ensues.  They did end up loosing the shark, but what a wild story.

My little, but first sword fish

Bill, Rusty and Jim Merickel (Minnesota Cold on the FS Forum)  Bill was the angler

Shark ate the sword's tail at boatside

Lots of steaks here!

Here is my drill set-up on my 50wide.  Its called the Reel Crankie.  You can Google it. $169.00

Here is Rusty's setup.  This was a custom deal made by machinist/engineer Roger Hayes of Summit Machine in Big Pine Key (305-872-9319).  He charges about $200 for this job.  It's counter balanced, has a 5/8" hex and is well designed.  This is a better deal than the Reel Crankie.

This post was modified at February 10, 2010 - 6:27am (EST) by TeamTeke