After a marlin has been "teased" into the right mood, they will often hit an FPF without hesitating.

The Flashy Profile Fly has played a big part in revolutionizing big game fly fishing, but it is still only one component in catching billfish on the fly. While we know that marlin will indeed eat an FPF, we also know that the fish must first be teased into the right mood and position to offer the best chance of a successful hook-up.

Teasing begins the moment your bait is struck by a bill. With no hooks to spook it, the fish is usually content to stick around after its first attack, when it expects the stricken prey to slow or sink. Instead, it is confronted with a still intact and fast moving bait. This confuses and enrages the billfish, causing it to pursue the bait with increased vigor. It "switches on".

Deck side, the team is in action. The rod connected to the teaser is in the hands of a crew member, other teasers are cleared, and the skipper is calling the shots. As the fish zeroes in, the teaser is carefully manipulated back to the boat. Ideally, the bait is kept just ahead of the fish, with the retrieve speed determined by the moves of the fish.

Once the fish is within 30 feet of the boat, an angler should make his cast. At this point, the skipper may call neutral (an IGFA requirement before the cast can be made) and as the fish lunges at the teaser, it is jerked from the water. The angler casts the FPF to a spot within a few feet back from where the teaser left the water.

By this time the fish should be ready to pounce on anything that hits the water. He will spin around to look for the bait and the flashy fly will catch his eye. It should almost be motionless, sinking slowly and as drag-free as possible. If the switch has been made correctly, the fish is finally presented with what he expects to see, a sinking "prey" that has died from repeated attacks.

Sinking an FPF as though it was stunned by a billfish is often the best way to ensure a solid hookset in the corner of the mouth.

Many crews advocate the use of popper-headed flies, which are stripped back to the boat after the switch is made. From what I've witnessed, teased billfish commonly react to the moving, popping fly by getting in behind it and striking it repeatedly with their bill. With bill-swiping bites, chances of hooking it are marginal because when the fish feels the point of the hook in the bill, its most common reaction is to violently shake its head. Tippets often abrade severely or break at this point.

In the method we use, those first seconds of the fly's sinking, while the billfish turns away from the boat and accelerates towards the fly, are often the prelude to a secure hook-up, either inside or in the corner of the mouth. Teased up to a fever, billfish seldom hesitate to aggressively gulp a well-presented FPF.