This time of year in Fort Lauderdale our guests often request to fish Dolphin for the targeted species. Our group today was no different with 20 lbs. of chicken back at the house to barbecue, some fresh fish would be a nice addition. Greg, Andy and Jeff were all ready to go on the 4 hour morning trip and with our early start, we were first out.
The sea buoy that marks the entrance to Port Everglades is an excellent place to start trolling too. The chain and the buoy it holds has all sorts of growth on it, as well as offering a place for small bait fish to hide. A lap or two around this marker can bring excellent results. But our first two hits were misses… One cut the high line, another on a deep line. Both baits cut as if with a knife, probably Kingfish.
As we wandered away from the buoy another strike on the deep line did not connect. It was reset immediately and another strike came and missed. This is the pattern of a Sailfish and when the line was reset and tripped again, Justin let it come up some from depth before resetting it. And he did it just enough for the Sail to find and eat my high line. Fish on!
Andy was in the chair and even though this wasn't the target today, it was exciting as can be. The group helped Justin get the other lines in and Andy did a great job fighting the fish. He had us stretched out pretty good for a while, me on the radio asking other boats to keep clear and soon our prize was boatside for pictures by the crowd. I'm afraid I never had a camera shot at this one, he released himself before we could remove the hook for him. We were letting him go anyway.
Now when anyone who knows sees a charter boat backing up, they know something cool is going on and a very short time later we were , once again, clearing lines to back up! We'd had a good hit on one of the deep lines and this fish was taking us to town. We were down to the backing in no time before we got the lines clear and the boat into reverse. Now gaining back some serious line, this fish again took off. A call came in on the radio asking what we had on now??? No clue I'm afraid. But this time our prize wasn't a fish but a mammal eating what we'd caught. A large Porpoise had found our Bonito and was having a game of tug of war with us. He was enjoying it, our angler was not. This happens often when Porpoise are around. They have the ability to steal our fish without so much as a bat of their eyes. They don't eat the entire fish and their telltale mark is left on the head, a sharply cut V in the top.
A small King was caught without incident, a Blackfin Tuna and another bomber Bonito. We came across an east west tidal line and caught a decent Dolphin. Lately, the Mahi's that have been in shallow waters have been attracted to the boat sitting rather than trolling so we put out a few shark baits in the area and hoped for the best. The Dolphin activity was too far from shore to get to on a 4 hour trip.
The Mahi we'd caught would turn out to be our only one but we did manage to hook a Hammerhead Shark. Andy again was in the chair and is pictured with this 7' T head. The hooks were removed and he was set free and our trip was over.
Happy 4th of July guys… Hope the fish added to the barbecue.
Keep em tight… Keep em on.
Captain Steve