7/5 – I was supposed to go Drum fishing with Steve of West Virginia, but he called me the afternoon before and said “So I hear it’s supposed to be really calm…I’ve always wanted to catch a dolphin…” So a half-day became a full-day and we were going dolphin fishing.
By calm I mean SLICK calm – not a ripple on the water. I was planning on heading a decent ways out (25 miles or so) but I was stopped way short. When I began my troll, there were only two boats in sight and it immediately produced the “bugbear of the day.” With miles of ocean around us, the boat came within 50 yards of me and ran over one of my dolphin weenies. When there’s this much ocean – why must we get so close?!
I put out a drone spoon that immediately started getting slammed by the kings. Pretty soon we jumped off a small dolphin. It was then that I found what I was looking for – a great weedline in the middle of nowhere without a boat to be seen. With 30 seconds a 3lb bailer took a weenie – as I slowed to bail in the fish, one of my dink ballyhoo sank down and was slammed by a 12-15lb bull (picture below). For the next few hours we picked away at the fish – an 8pounder there, a 7pounder here, a 12lb cow there. On the weeds, off the weeds – over bait, didn’t matter.
Pretty soon we brought them in thick – Steve had a blast with a school of 6-10lb “bailers” on mirrolure topdogs and bailing squid to a school that was probably near 100 fish. An 8lb fish on a 10lb spinning rod is a hoot!!! You could have caught them on the fly all afternoon. We definitely could have gotten our limit but decided to stick it out and find some more big fish. We finished the day with 17 dolphin, 3 kings, a giant remora, some sharks and several big fish we lost. Now remember -these fish aren’t tiny 1-2lb “chickens” – all but one fell in the 4-10lb range!!!All within 15 miles of the beach!!!!
This is why I run a Parker and not a bayboat – on nice days I can safely run a bit offshore. For less than $500 Steve got near two limits of mahi-mahi!!!! These guys should be around for a while – let me say that much! I currently have the 10th, 12th, 13th, 16th and 17th available – come on down!!
7/6 -I took Mary, Miranda and Mike on a tour/bird watching expedition. On the way out, I found the spanish thick and we were able to catch these bad boys in less than 10 minutes! Finally – good numbers of summer spaniards!
