Your First Billfish

Nothing comes easy in offshore fishing. The run is long, the waves are big and finding a fish in a million miles of ocean is hard. But there is a bluewater fishery with surprisingly easy entry. Two rods, a box of tackle and a thousand yards of line are all you need to deep-drop for swordfish.

Up until a few years ago, most anglers targeted swordfish at night by drifting with rigged baits and bright lights. The tactic was marginally successful and not easy. Then, anglers in the Florida Keys developed tactics to catch huge swordfish during the day. They dropped rigged baits more than 1,000 feet to swords feeding near the bottom. Since then, the technique has spread around