PBI - 11/21 Plenty of Nice Dolphin on live bait

Capt Tommy

I got cancelled on the Ocean Yacht today so I volunteered my services on the Rybovich today. Sailfish was the target species so we bought a dozen goggle eyes, grabbed a couple starving runners from the pen to add and headed out.

Ran down to the south and threw up one kite. Struggled through the weeds and up comes a dolphin on the flat line. Moments later the short kite and long kite each go down to the green hornets. I wind the flat line fish in and right behind him is a 10+lb. fish and one, no two, no five - holy crap 15 or more dolphin! Normally that's a big win. But with just two of us on the boat and the boat owner doesn't eat fish - we're cursing. We catch two of the three and promptly cut the leaders and let them keep the hooks. With no other baits in the water we push offshore and leave the dolphin. (Yes, you read right - we released them and moved AWAY from the school!)

As the day went on we fought weeds and dropping winds, more dolphin attacks and a few kingfish but never actually raised a sailfish. Maybe we should have moved further south where a couple tournament boats picked away, or maybe up to the north where there were a few caught as well, or maybe they were in shallower... Or deeper? Aw Heck, all in all it was a decent day, even though we didn't get our target species. As we were preparing to leave one more dolphin jumped on our last flat line bait. We pulled him alongside and a large cuda exploded from underneath taking his tail and 8 inches or so of his body. Despite that he made a panicked run and valiantly tried to escape. Seeing he was dying anyway we swung him up into the boat, wound in our last remaining line and headed to the dock.

Final tally = 5 of 7 dolphin (only kept the one) 5-12lbs.

butts182

Looks like a sweet boat. Have any better pics of it?

Reel Mullarkey

You should have told the owner that dolphin fins are great sailfish bait. All in all, I've had worse problems, thanks for the report.

Fi$h2nguyen

Way to go. I'd like more pics of boat too.

captaintj

better than not being on the water

Lu 1967

Same problem with us no sails to be found.Found all the Mahi you want at 600 feet.Kept 4 gaffers.Fished from Ocean Reef all the to Pickles.Had better luck down south.

Capt Tommy

butts182 wrote: »

Looks like a sweet boat. Have any better pics of it?

They don't make 'em any sweeter than this one! But no, I don't have any better pics. All my pics are from on board, looking out. Heck, I am
lucky I even remember to take THOSE pics!

Black Attack

A day catching is so much better than a day fishing. Nice job on releasing the Phins.