TOP CATCHES
Achieving an IGFA Billfish Royal Slam in African waters By Jonathan Booysen
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HE IGFA’s Billfish Royal Slam Club is one of the most prestigious and revered angling clubs in all of sportfishing, recognising individual anglers who catch — or catch and release — the required nine species of billfish during his or her lifetime. The proviso is, of course, that the catches must be made in line with IGFA rules. Currently only two South Africans hold this prestigious title, namely Trevor Hansen and myself. The specified species for the Billfish Royal Slam are Atlantic and Indo-Pacific sailfish, Atlantic and Indo-Pacific blue marlin, black marlin, striped marlin, white marlin, swordfish, and spearfish. Catching all these species requires many dedicated hours on the water, several international trips to various locations and obviously a great deal of luck.
INDO-PACIFIC SAILFISH The Indo-Pacific sailfish is any light tackle angler’s ultimate fish. This fish is exciting to catch because it comes into one’s trolled spread of small lures with its flanks striped in purple bands and its head and lance-shaped bill half out of the water as it strikes. Then all hell breaks loose as it rushes into the air showing off its large dorsal sail. It’s a White marlin caught off Morocco.
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sight the angler connected to the other end of the line will never forget. I caught my first sailfish in January 1995 while looking for marlin livebait off Cape Vidal. At the time I was planning to catch a marlin in an effort to kickstart my ambition to target the many billfish species we have in our
waters. The sailie was thus not specifically targeted, and it took a small Sailure I had out for a dorado. Indo-Pacific sailfish are prolific in hot tropical waters such as those which stretch from the KwaZulu-Natal coast all the way up Africa’s eastern seaboard to Somalia and into the Persian Gulf.