sought by dolphin fishermen in the southeastern states.
EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
The same ballyhoo trolled for white marlin, either rigged “naked” or behind a skirt, take mahi, too. Those sticking with lures can’t go wrong with feathers in the 1- to 2-ounce range, Sevenstrand Tuna Clones or Mold- craft’s Little Hooker and Junior Hooker lures. Although they require anglers to use tackle that’s really too heavy for most dolphin encounters, spreader bars rigged with 6-inch shell squid seem to draw a lot of attention, as do daisy chains of full-bodied 6- or 9-inch squid.
While bait will usually draw more strikes, dolphin will also hit small, flashy jigs cast near the buoys.
weighing less than five pounds. For such fish, neither the bait nor the hooks should be too large; #2/0 or #3/0 bronzed, short-shanked tuna hooks work well. Wire leaders are unneces- sary unless mahi are sharing the ocean with bluefish, but they do have some fairly sharp teeth, so a shock leader of heavy mono is always a good idea. At times, larger fish may be deeper in the water column, relating to the submerged buoy line rather than to the buoy itself. It may be worthwhile for at least one angler on the boat to cast a somewhat larger, weighted bait that will quickly drop past the “chickens” and reach the levels where bigger dol- phin might lie. Many times, such a bait will go untouched, but the fish it might attract could make all of the extra effort worthwhile.
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It should be noted that, while bait will usually draw more strikes, dol- phin will also hit small, flashy jigs cast near the buoys. One charter boat cap- tain who I know puts his flyfishing clients on some quality dolphin by having them cast streamers into the same sort of places that others toss baits.
Although baitfishing around float- ing objects is probably the most com- mon and productive way to catch dol- phin, an appreciable number of fish, including many of the largest, are taken on the troll. Blind trolling is a crapshoot, and relies mainly on luck. However, covering a lot of ground, and pulling lures past isolated pots gener- ally ignored by the bait fishermen, ups the odds considerably.
Some combination of wooden pal- lets tossed from the decks of freighters, telephone poles, pieces from disman- tled boats and the ubiquitous discard- ed chum buckets can always be found floating in New York’s offshore sea. All can hold dolphin, and a few passes past such floating junk often yields a fish or two. Surprisingly, the one type of “float” that I find consistently unproductive off Long Island are the big mats of sargassum that are avidly
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Such a daisy chain, fished long down the center of the pattern, once reminded me that anglers aren’t alone in their search for mahi. It was late July, and a huge warm-core eddy had moved inshore from the Gulf Stream. Faced with more than a thousand square miles of featureless, blue, 80- degree water, it was tough to find fish that day but, as we trolled past the Bacardi wreck, a 15-pound dol- phin grabbed the daisy chain. I had that dolphin within 40 feet of the boat when the ocean exploded and maybe 300 pounds of mahi-hunting blue marlin blocked out the sky. It missed my hooked fish, which was soon boated, and an hour spent trolling the area failed to bring the marlin back up. Still, the memory of that sudden and unexpected moment did not get away.
While dolphin will never replace the billfish, tuna and shark that forever swim in anglers’ imaginations and inspire countless trips to distant grounds, they are no longer bit players on New York’s offshore fishing scene. Instead, they have earned a strong sup- porting role, entertaining anglers who have been abandoned by billfish and tuna, are looking for some light-tackle action or perhaps seek nothing more than the makings of a good fish fry. In that role, New York’s dolphin are enjoying a new and long overdue pop- ularity. May it always be so.
Charles A. Witek III is a vice chairman of
CCA’s National Government Relations Committee and served on the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council from 2002-05.
TIDE
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