Trolling for Swords - Sun Sentinel Article

[Uncle Buck]

En garde!
Trolling lures pays off for swordfish
Published January 8, 2006

Hardly any anglers troll for swordfish at night in South Florida. According to Norm King, those people don't know what they're missing.

King, of Lighthouse Point, tried trolling for swordfish just recently. His first trip produced about a 60-pound swordie. His second trip, this past Monday night, yielded a 225-pounder.

"I read in one of the fishing magazines that people were successful trolling for swordfish over in Africa," King said. "They were trolling Soft Head lures and putting a light stick out in front of them. So I thought I'd give it a try."

King had caught swordfish like most everybody else in South Florida, drifting with live bait such as blue runners, goggle-eyes or tinker mackerel or with rigged squid.

"It does work. There's no question about it," King said.

"I'm a big believer in artificials. I fish all artificials all the time, and I do pretty good. I've got a pretty good scrapbook."

Among his catches on lures was a 500-pound blue marlin off Big Pine Key and a 125-pound yellowfin tuna on a quarter-ounce Billy Bait 40 miles offshore.

After reading the article on trolling lures for swordfish, it still took King more than a year to do it.

"I bought some lures a while ago, some glow-in-the-dark kind of lures, with the intention of getting out there, but I'd been busy," said King, who conferred with Tom Greene of Custom Rod and Reel in Lighthouse Point about trolling for swordfish. "I finally got the time and I got together with a couple of buddies of mine and tried it."

King first trolled on Bumpy, his 27-foot Sea Ray, with Zane Haecherl.

They'd been trolling 10 miles off Hillsboro Inlet for 55 minutes when they heard the clicker going on one of the reels, which meant that a fish was whacking the glow-in-the-dark squid lure that was on the surface.

"About 20, 30 seconds later, it just went off like a freight train," King said. "My buddy Zane thought it was a shark. I reeled it up and it was a swordfish. We were happy."

And King was able to say, "I told you so."

"Zane thought I was crazy," King said. "When we caught a fish he thought maybe this isn't such a bad idea."

A few days later, with a decent weather forecast for Monday night, King and Haecherl went out on Haecherl's 31-foot Fountain with Karl Lundgren.

King put the lures about 50 feet behind the boat, two down in the water -- one a diving lure, the other on a planer -- and two on the surface on 50-pound Shimano TLD reels spooled with 80-pound braided line and 200-pound monofilament leaders.

Two hours into their fishing trip, the 225-pound swordfish slammed the same glow-in-the-dark squid on the surface. Lundgren fought the swordie, which was foul-hooked in a gill plate, for 90 minutes.

"Towards the end of the fight, the fish came straight up out of water 20 feet behind the boat and his sword came out of the water, so I knew it was big," King said. "That was it. We got one bite, got the fish to the boat and headed home."

King and his companions told their friends about their trolling exploits, passed around some photos and sent out some e-mails.

Greene was thrilled when he learned of King's success.

"I've been preaching this to all these people for quite a while," Greene said. "Norm listens to me a little bit.

"No. 1, we all know that you get more swordfish bites as you're putting a fresh bait out or reeling it in to check it. No. 2, when you put the boat in gear, which raises the baits up, when they settle down a little bit, you tend to get more bites.

"You take the bait away from the fish, they bite it."

Steve Waters can be reached at swaters@sun-sentinel.com or at 954-356-4648.