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Early last summer I ran across a random fishing post on Facebook. It was a great photo of a man on a small boat, holding the bill of a sizable swordfish. However, what caught my attention was the location. Rather than being posted from the Gulf of Mexico or Florida, this catch was from Saint-Tropez, France—right in the heart of the lavish French Riviera.
Now, if your social media algorithm is anything like mine, you are probably flooded with fishing pictures, but for some reason, this guy made me very curious, and I began to look for his posts on a regular basis and dig deeper.
Nearly all of his posts featured him holding the bills of variously sized swordfish in the Gulf of Saint-Tropez, located in the northern Mediterranean Sea. Curiosity finally got the better of me, and I reached out to Samuel Urbain on Facebook to learn more about this swordfish man from Saint-Tropez.
Planting the Seed
Samuel was born in Belgium and began fishing on the banks of the Meuse River, a large body of water that rises in France and runs through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea.
As a young boy he fished the Meuse for pike and carp with his father, Rudy, and his grandfather Emanuel, who, according to Samuel, “are the ones who gave me the fishing virus.” He continues, “When I was around 10 or 11, I discovered the world of sea fishing in the Mediterranean. My dad and I have devoted ourselves to that ever since.
Samuel eventually moved from Belgium to Sainte-Maxime, a city in southern France on the Mediterranean Sea, allowing him to continue his passion in the Gulf of Saint-Tropez. “We started out coastal-fishing for bonito, sea bass, barracuda and amberjack by slow-trolling with live bait, jigs and soft lures. We then ventured further offshore looking for tuna and spearfish.”
Connecting the Dots
In 2014, Samuel and Rudy decided to pursue a much more singular dream, and they gave up their pursuit of all other fish to dedicate their efforts exclusively to Xiphias gladius—the mighty and elusive swordfish. Samuel’s pursuit began with a lot of research on swordfish catches in their part of the world. “To my great surprise,” Samuel recounts, “all the old fishermen, professional fishermen, tackle dealers, the local fishing magazine—no one had any useful information or tips to provide. It was as if this fish was almost nonexistent in our area, and the few swords that were caught were by chance as bycatch. I picked up a few tips from friends R.J. Boyle and Bouncer Smith in Florida, but conditions are different here in the Mediterranean Sea, and it was nearly impossible to adapt to our region. There were other drawbacks. Equipment and tackle for swordfish are difficult to impossible to find in Europe, so I would load up when I’d visit the US and bring it home with me. My sponsors all provide some of their products to me, and that helps tremendously. But in terms of really learning how to swordfish, I guess you could say that I’m self-taught.”
After hours of research and dozens of fruitless trips, Samuel caught his first swordfish on August 15, 2015. “My first sword is definitely the most memorable one,” recalls Samuel. “It was late summer, on a very hot day, with slick calm seas. I was fishing with my Daiwa MP3000 with a custom-made medium swordfish rod. We had our first bite around midday, but the hook pulled after a few minutes. We quickly baited up again, and 15 minutes later, a smaller sword took the bait. It was a short fight to get the fish to the boat, but there it was, our very first swordfish—the culmination of many dreams, an enormous amount of research and many hours of catching our own squid baits at night.” Because it was their first, they harvested the fish for family and friends to consume at a party celebrating their success. Samuel felt it necessary to include that his family celebrated for days!
Dialed In
His boat, aptly named Swordfish, is a well-equipped Wellcraft 222 Fisherman with a single 250 hp Mercury engine. Thanks to his strong presence on social media, Samuel’s quest has landed him a few sponsors that want to broaden their exposure in that part of the world. Partnerships with global and domestic brands such as Lowrance, MotorGuide, Airmar, RoyPow and Vitrifrigo have helped transform Swordfish into an extremely capable gameboat.
Samuel’s tackle of choice is 65-pound braid line on his Tiagra 30W reel and Daiwa MP3000 for deep drifting. According to Samuel, the techniques he employs in the Mediterranean are similar to those used in other parts of the world. “The Mediterranean Sea is generally quite calm, with few currents, small tides and water with a higher salinity factor than in the ocean,” he explains. “The density of fish is lower there, and overall their sizes and weights are generally smaller. They can be caught year-round, but there is a larger abundance from June to September.”
His home port is Sainte-Maxime on the Gulf of Saint-Tropez, where Samuel’s boat is moored year-round. From there they can also run to nearby ports in the Mediterranean, such as Menton, Monaco, Antibes, Porquwrolles and further west to San Remo, Italy. But due to the size of the onboard freezer, with room for about 30 dead baits, they limit the trips to a week or less.
Samuel normally fishes in the daytime, deep-dropping the squid he’s caught at night in the offseason. “When I’m lucky enough to have a free-swimmer near the boat, I let go with a squid bait in the current, and generally he reacts quickly enough to see it, strike and grab it,” says Samuel. “I love the feeling of holding the line between my fingers and feeling the sword go off on the bait. It’s such an adrenaline rush! The biggest fish caught like that was around 250 pounds. It’s rare for us to see free-jumpers or sleepers on the surface, but in our 35 to 40 days of fishing during the season, we probably see and bait eight to 10 fish on the surface.”
Since 2017, Samuel has won six awards from The Billfish Foundation for Top Tagging Angler for Atlantic Swordfish, while his dad has won four for Top Tagging Captain for Atlantic Swordfish, the most recent being announced in January for the 2024 season. They tagged 56 fish. A typical season will result in as many as 50 fish. The best season was in 2023, when they released 73 swordfish. In total over the past seven years, Samuel and Rudy have tagged around 350 swordfish for The Billfish Foundation.
A New Challenge
August 21, 2021, was a typical summer day on the Mediterranean, hot and sunny with very calm seas. Samuel and Rudy headed 25 to 30 miles offshore to an area that has structure and deep drop-offs, where they will usually find fish between 2,000 and 3,000 feet deep. “Just after lunch, a swordfish took our bait. After a 45-minute fight, we had him to the boat and placed a TBF tag, noting the coordinates, length and estimated weight of 45 pounds. It was another great day on the sea,” Samuel notes.
Fast-forward to September 30, 2023. Samuel and Rudy left their mooring and headed to their swordfish grounds, as usual. Nothing was different about the day, and they calmly went about the business at hand. “I had already tagged and released a nice swordfish before lunch,” Samuel recounts. “A short time later, I saw a twitch on the line and grabbed the rod. As I was getting him closer to the boat, the fish came up, and I could see a tag attached to his shoulder. When we got him boatside, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was a tag we had deployed two years earlier in generally the same area! We quickly measured the length of the fish and its weight, retrieved the recaptured tag and set a fresh one before we released the fish for a second time.”
Upon further research, the Urbains’ fish was 45 pounds and 115 centimeters when it was first caught, August 21, 2021. When recaptured roughly two years later, the fish was 220 pounds and 195 centimeters. It was recaptured within 31 miles from where it was first tagged, 770 days earlier. Later that afternoon, they tagged and released their third swordfish of the day. “I believe this is the first time in the history of conventional tagging that a swordfish has been recaptured by the same angler, captain and boat,” Samuel explains. “It’s still hard to believe we were so lucky!”
I spoke with Peter Chaibongsai, director of Conservation Programs at TBF, regarding the recapture of Samuel’s previously tagged swordfish. “Samuel’s recapture was the first ever recorded in the Mediterranean Sea for any billfish,” states Chaibongsai. “He’s had a total of 12 recaptures, most of them by the long-liners who fish there. Recapturing a tagged billfish is very rare, but to recapture your own tagged fish is even more so. Samuel has made a real difference in this part of the world, with more professional and recreational anglers participating in our efforts.”
Samuel added, “I understand from Peter and from Ellen Peel, president of TBF, that ICCAT [International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas] is beginning to pay more attention to the swordfishing in the Mediterranean Sea to better understand how to manage the stock and preserve the species. Swordfish here are now subjected to special protection, with sport-fishing enthusiasts having total no-kill regulations in place. But despite commercial quotas, longlining continues for swordfish and bluefin tuna throughout the Mediterranean.”
Driving the Passion
There’s no doubt that swordfish are one of the most impressive big-game adversaries. But even after speaking with Samuel at length, I remained curious as to what drives his sole focus on, and borderline obsession with, swordfish.
“I will always love Xiphias gladius more than any other fish. Dad and I will continue our passion by passing it on to the son I share with my wife, Priscilla—little Sam, who at nearly five years old is waiting patiently to be able to join us to pursue this incredible fish,” Samuel explains. “That passion is fueled by a combination of things: the difficulty in finding them and understanding their nature. It’s their incredible speed, their strength and their well-known silhouette. I’ve had the opportunity to fish in many seas and oceans, but after living for more than 20 years on the shores of the Mediterranean, this is where I flourish in my passion. It’s a time of relaxation and sharing with my family that requires both rigor and perseverance. Our favorite sport allows us to clear our heads of all the little worries of everyday life.”
And that’s a sentiment with which we can all agree.
