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Trigger
 
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My sons and I have fished for years from piers and whatnot because I didn't have a boat. I've taken them on charters and fishing with my buddies every chance I got but they were always snapper trips. I've caught snapper and redfish until I'm blue in the face. I just bought my first boat and we went for the fish we always wanted to catch. Namely Mahi ! I've read everything I can and listened to every buddy I have about how to catch dolphinfish but as soon as I got out I realized I don't know jack. I put the lures in the water and trolled for hours never having any idea if this was even the right lure to use. It's hard to know if they're biting if you don't know if you're using the right bait. Considering that I've fished every chance I got since I was a kid it's hard to admit that I'm lost but I am.
We lucked up and got a couple chicken dolphin on a king lure. I left it in the water," like I was advised" and hooked one more but the rest wouldn't bite. At the end of the day I ended up with 4 fish in the box. My sons freaked and all I hear now is dolphin, dolphin.
What lures are best and I keep hearing that "Natural Bait" is best. On this show I watched this guy hooking live bait on the lure? Please, any advise would be greatly appreciated and keep these boys from realizing their dad is clueless.
Thanks
Semper Fi
 Semper FI
Cape Horn 21'
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White Marlin
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Blue and white Islanders with ballyhoo, sea witch with ballyhoo or bonita strips or mullet strips. Red and white also works and pull a black and red,black and purple or black and orange for wahoo. They will also hit stretch lures and pitch baits. Find a good rip or weed line or anything floating in the water and drag a bait by it and see what happens.
AKA "Jiggin Junkie"
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Sailfish
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| x2 for the Ilander/Ballyhoo Combos Also try some feathered lures. Like they say, there's not 1 magical lure.  What they hit today they may not hit tomorrow. I myself like dolphin weenies with strip baits - easy, cheap, and catches fish .
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Trigger
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By "strips" do you mean strips of cutbait or a type of lure. I wasn't kidding when I said I was lost..
Thanks for the reply.. I'll dedicate my first big Mahi to you guys..
Semper FI
Cape Horn 21'
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Sailfish
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Trigger
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Great website!! Thanks a lot....
Semper FI
Cape Horn 21'
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Mingo
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Yep, look for a tide line or floating debris. You can even throw newspaper on the water and come back in a few hours, but, be sure to pick it up. ;)
I like to troll one green machine in my spread.
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Trigger
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Thanks for the response. I've been using just the two back rod holders. I'm researching outriggers but there are so many to choose from. Any suggestions as to Outriggers/downriggers?
Semper FI
Cape Horn 21'
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Ruby Red Lip
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| My experiences with chicken dophin is that the trick is to get them feeding. When they are the others will hit almost anything. When they stop it can be a puzzle to solve. I have gone through practically everything in the tackle boxes to get them turned back on again...once they do you have to get them as quick as you can. We got on a school of them and they were hitting everything and suddenly stopped. Turns out a big cow was hanging below them just out of our sight. While we were frantically throwing everything at them we had she came up to stare at a whole dead cigar minnow. It was like a stare down...I told my buddy to just twitch it and she immediately inhaled the bait. The chicken doplhin went crazy and we got 30 in 20 minutes.
 REEL NAUTI Century 2901 Yamaha F-250's
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Ruby Red Lip
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| Is there a way to locate a weed line other than just running out and looking around? Does Hilton or Roffs charts help?
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Trigger
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Yes Hiltons or Roffs can help.. when you locate a rip.. either alor change or a temp break, chance are the different currents will have pushed some weeds and debris to form. So while these services dont show weeds per say, they will show you the areas that you are most likely to find them.
"401 Cay"
2005 225 Edgewater, Yahmaha F225 (SOLD)
"Tunnel Vision"
2007 Glacier Bay 2665 Canyon Runner, Twin Yamaha F150's
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Ruby Red Lip
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| We too are newbies but after a run to the nipple and trolling a few hours with nary a sign, we went with someone who knew something. Put all Ilander Black Holes out (blue/white/ red and white) with ballyhoo. We were pulling 5 lines. Caught some nice dolphin. The difference was this... Only trolled by weed lines in blue/ green water near the 131 hole/ elbow. As for outriggers, we put Taco Grand Slams on our boat - 15 ft. It is a 25 WACC Robalo and we opted against the 18 ft for stress on the fiberglass top. They work great and I plan to troll double lines on each in a couple of weeks. The black holes were great because they popped on the top and bubbled. The other Ilanders we had were bullets and didn't jet as much. We caught one nice fish that was hanging with the buddy that wa being caught. Dropped a dead ballyhoo on a spinning setup to nail it. Main difference was the top water lures on nice spread around grass or other topwater debris.
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Trigger
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Thanks for all the good advice fellas. My heads about to pop waiting to go try this stuff out.
Semper FI
Cape Horn 21'
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Snapper
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| A dolphin is one of the fastest growing fish in the sea, therefore it has to eat constantly. I think locating the dolphin is probably more important than what type of lure or bait to use. They are generally not very picky eaters.
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Trigger
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Can't beat either a naked or skirted ballyhoo trolled over what ever structure you know of or until you find a weedline. Obviously, look for birds dipping.
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White Marlin
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reelfinatical (7/4/2008)
Also try some feathered lures.
In our spread, I don't think we have a single lure less than 14 inches long. Point being, we have found that when we specifically try to target mahi with smaller lures, we tend to catch smaller fish. A mahi has a voracious appetite, and will often attack a lure just as long as itself. Consequently, we pull all our bigass plastics with marlin primarily our target quary-but as a result, we also tend to weed out the bigger dolphin from the chickens. Generally the only mahis that attack our spread are your bigger fish in the 25 pound and up range. Sure you have the old adage "elephants eat peanuts," but I would rather pull big and catch big.
 Team PrimeTime
Auburn Wakeboard Team
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Mingo
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| When we head East for our bluewater fishing (I'm referring to last year, I guess, when there was some bluewater within 80 miles of the beach to the east), we go out of our way to prepare for the eventuality of meeting up with some big dolphin. My thought is that it is key to have a variety of natural bait to offer them. We take a box of squid, cigar minnows, and plenty of ballyhoo, and we take pains to capture a bunch of good livies like pinfish, threadfins, and alewives before we go out. We troll lots of blue/white lures with medium ballyhoo behind them, so as to mimic flying fish. Other colors work but we're partial to the blue/white. Once you get a bite or two in a specific location, it is worth stopping the boat and trying to figure out what they are hanging on. Once you do, break out the live baits on big spinning rods. Hardtails are alright, but if they are too big the dolphin will just mouth them and the bait comes out on the first jump. Pinners and alewives are choice, although I have caught several big dolphin just pitching a dead medium ballyhoo to them. When they won't eat the aforementioned stuff, get out a whole squid and stomp it in the bottom of the boat so that the guts and stuff ooze out of the mantle. Toss it out and twitch it a little. Usually a dolphin cannot resist a squid. Chumming with cut squid and ballyhoo works well, too. A word about dolphin habitat: sargassum, in my experience, needs to be bright orange and floating high in the water to hold bait, and therefore dolphin. When we find those old brown, sunken mats of grass, we generally move on as this is dead grass and usually holds little life. Objects floating in a rip are usually better bait holders when they have some algae growing on them. And for me, the biggest attractor of big dolphin is anything wooden; a big, dead cypress log, rope spool, wooden pallet...for some reason the bait gets thick on wood and the dolphin are there, too. Last summer we also found some big bulls under a big blue tarp...in 400 feet of water! There are no fences out there... Hope some of this helps, good luck to you and catch 'em up. Bryan Bennett, Sam's, (251) 981-4245 P.S. Someone mentioned birds...if you see a big frigate (man-o-war) bird circling above a weedline, nine times out of ten it has its eye on a big bull dolphin in the rip. The other one time it is a big blue marlin...either way you win!
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Trigger
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Should I use a trolling weight in front of the lure, and if so, how far.. I had a weight in front of the lure that I caught all of the chicken Dolphin on. We had a few lines in the water and they only hit the one with the weight on it. But... from what I gather, these little dolphin will hit almost anything given the right circumstances so the fact that they hit this particular setup doesn't mean anything... right?
Semper FI
Cape Horn 21'
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White Marlin
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Jarhead (7/14/2008)
Should I use a trolling weight in front of the lure,
I say no. The only time I use a trolling weight is if I plan on doing more than 10 or so knots, and even then, I am only expecting wahoo.
Team PrimeTime
Auburn Wakeboard Team
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