You will do much better dropping back baits and waiting until the fish has turned away from the boat to set hook, you will get a much better hook up . You don't need anything fancy , just simple rig like a lip hooked mullet, dropped back on their head will see them taking it most times. Hard to hook up on lures whilst they are swimming towards the boat. They have hard mouths and hooks need to be sharp. Other wise the first jump will see you become detached from the fish.

yep switch baiting is the way to go. Sometimes they just won’t take skirts. really good site to see when they take a bait just back from the transom.

Also what we have done in the past- if you know there are a few in the area, you can slowly troll (say 2-4kts) a couple livies - one out each side while lightly holding onto the line while the reel is in free spool. if using circles, lightly pinned through the back at the forward end of the livie, when the sail takes it let it go for a bit to ensure its swallowed the bait, then put the reel into gear and wind with the rod pointing towards the fish so that the circle hooks up nicely. It’s not often you lose them when a circle is firmly hooked in the corner of the mouth and also easy to release.

Also from memory we were using 80lb trace with 7/0 light gauge gamagatsu circle hooks, this seemed pretty effective.

with sailfish expect to boat 1 out of 5 on lure and dont be surprized if you are 1 from 10 shots. when you come accross big pods you can get lucky because they hit the lures more aggressive, (assuming you are running 10-15kg line)  drags set and keep the boat moving, running small 8 inch lures rigged with sharp SL12s may help your chances. I would suggest spend the time to skip baits or switch with livies for any real succsess from chances.

 Rumour has it telferfish might actually know what he is talking about....

Good work on the comp win in Broome last week mate.

My first attempt at Sails in Broome....was out with a guru.

Good teasers, wait for sails to attack teasers, drop bait in on free spool whilst pulling teaser in...good fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auf08TxDVJc

Just have to ignore the sharks...if you jump over for a pic!

Cheers Pete

cheers, great fun comp and cant ask for much more than good weather cold beers and billfish. sails are awsome to catch all ways so good luck Jayce!

if you want to run pushers, grab ones that are soft heads not resin heads, they may hang around a little longer, the Ricther Soft Grassy is a great size for sails, i use them as teasers when switchbaiting up in Karratha off the outriggers. As the boys said a skipping gar or rigged live bait switched into the pattern is visually exciting and very productive, even if you make some short 100lb mono trace lengths, about 2ft long, small rubber skirt in fron of the hook and then a 9/0 inline circle hook with a garfish hooked through the eyes and the skirt pulled down over the head will hold up. especially if you are raising them on the pushers but don't hook up, cut the hooks off, it's only a crimp you have to redo if you want to go back, run the pushers on your bottom bashers and have the gar rigged on your trolling rods and see how you go!

Thanks for that fellas. I was trying to get away from using baits as we will be staying at the station and trying to avoid having to take in heaps of bait and store it. And i dont have a live bait tank on the boat.

I have a couple of 15kg setups i will be using but other than that im not very well set up at all. not worried about trolling all day every day for them. Just want to catch a couple so we can say we have caught them from my boat.

 Came back from Exmouth a couple of weeks ago and had great success with our first attempt at catching bill fish.

We landed 3 sail fish and a small marlin all on lures. we lost 1 lure/sail fish and had 2 bumps that we missid. it was in 3 days of fishing

Had no real idea of what to do but did some rechearch and that worked. 100m to 140 m water.

cheers

http://fishwrecked.com/forum/exmouth-sailing

Free spooled a richter to this one Jayce & one sharp hook as mentioned by telferfish.... shitload of luck too, managed to see one jumping & Doaky got the spread to them.

Next time you are in town I would have a yarn with Dave at Outdoor Sportz, he has spent huge time targeting sails in broome