Thanks to Saltwater Nation citizen Christopher Keller for sending us this remarkable picture taken yesterday off of Mazatlan. Keller was one of four anglers trolling with Captain Lefty Poncho aboard the PescaPesca when this magnificent sail hit a trolled ballyhoo. When PescaPesca mate Juan Ton brought the fish to the boat, everyone on board was amazed by the remarkable coloration of the sail. Keller alerted us to the natural coloration anomaly and sent us this photo as evidence of their catch. We, of course, immediately sent the picture to marine biologists at South Florida State Ichthyology College to get their take on the picture. “Clearly,” Professor Gil Pelagic explained to us, “this is a genetic mutation. Many sailfish have a similar mutation that can result in multicolored and dynamically patterned sail coloration. What makes this pattern so unique is that as readers of English, we clearly attribute an alphabetic form to this coloration pattern. It is unusual to see such defined coloration patterns in sails this large, but it is not improbable. What this catch clearly manifests, though, is that such mutations in nature clearly emerge to indicate that the next phase in the evolutionary process of sport fishing will be deeply influenced by Inventive Fishing. Clearly.”

 

Anomaly, Coloration, Mazatlan, Sailfish

By Sid

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