An all-day fishing trip for Dolphin this time of year in Fort Lauderdale can be very rewarding. Dolphin, or Mahi-Mahi as we call them to eliminate confusion between the fish and the mammal, can be caught just out of the blue but are usually found around weed lines or floating debris. Almost anything floating can hold fish… Pieces of wood or rope, netting, barrels and buckets… The key to success is finding that debris.
Our fishing trip today was Tammy, who has fished with us before, her two sons Brandon and Justin, and Curt, a nephew or cousin, I can't really remember. LOL The request for Dolphin was what they wanted and we set a plan for the day to spend most the day off shore looking but first? Let's catch a few fish close in.
We didn't have to wait long either for our first few fish. Just outside the sea buoy at Port Everglades, a deep line went off, then 3 other hits all at the same time. We boated a nice sized Kingfish and 3 Bonitos. The boys got to handle the rods and some quick instructions on level winding the line in would be advantageous later. Getting covered up like this is a great start to our day. A few more passes did nothing to improve our fishbox so we left the area and headed off shore in search of our prize.
Dolphin fishing trips can be a hero or zero type thing and as mile after mile from shore went by, we were beginning to get concerned. We've had lots of rain and the water was brown in color to about 600' or 3 miles from shore. It then changed to a sort of blue but not clean blue like Mahi's like. We then found the really pretty blue water out about 6 miles but nothing to fish to except scattered weeds here and there so we pressed on until we were out about 11 miles from shore.
We had found a streak of weed and fished this for some time with nothing happening. It was now about 11, our trip getting close to half over and we still hadn't boated a single fish, or even had a strike for that matter. The mate, Justin, and I were both wondering if today would be a bust. Absolutely nothing was being heard on the radio. But outside us another half mile or so was yet another something, we couldn't tell. Let's check that out.
A nice line with huge beds of weeds was certainly the formula for what we were looking for. As we got close and made our turn to fish along the edge, our first hits from Dolphin came from under the weeds. And this began what ended up being over 2 hours of pure catching. Each pass brought more Dolphin, 2, 3 or 4 at a time. The area of weed ran for about a mile or so and with the current of the Gulf Stream, we drifted north about 6 miles. At times, we had to regroup as nothing to fish with was left in the water, they had eaten everything we had out.
As time went on, we ended up throwing back some of the smaller fish and keeping those that we knew were of legal size. No really big ones though we saw a few nice ones jumping, the biggest being about 10 or 11 lbs. Our cooler was packed full and we left them biting and headed home.
Back at the dock I snapped this picture. All in all, we had caught over 30 Dolphin, I stopped counting at 30 because everyone was picking up fish and taking pictures. Can you blame them? This had truly been Mahi madness, one of the best days for catching Dolphin we have had in a long time. And I have to thank Tammy and the boys for doing so well and making us look good when we came back in. This off shore Dolphin fishing trip ended up being one of the great ones. I know I and they will remember it for a long time to come.
Keep em tight… Keep em on.
Captain Steve
