Hello Fish Fans, The red hot dolphin bite that usually goes off during April and May passed us by this year. The dolphin were scattered about like the weeds and most of the slammer and trophy size dolphin never made it to the west side of the gulfstream. We picked away at school size dolphin of 4 to 8 pounds last week and big blackfin tuna of 15 to 25 pounds.
The TCBA Fishing Tournament usually held on Memorial Day Weekend was postponed a week to avoid the wind, rain and sporty seas. We ended up fishing the tournament with another group that had previously booked that Saturday.
We headed out at 6am and spent the first couple of hours trolling the blue water edge for wahoo and dolphin. Only one mystery bite so we headed offshore to find that big bull dolphin that we all envision when we leave the dock on tournament day.
We ran out to 1000 feet of water before we found good conditions with scattered weeds, flying fish and debris. It wasn’t long before we had our first bite and boated a small dolphin. We continued out to 1500 feet of water and with no additional bites we headed back into a 1000 feet.
We came across some float and as we approached we had dolphin of 5 to 10 pounds on both sides of the boat. We fished that float for over an hour and the dolphin just swam around and flipped us off. Live bait, dead bait, chunking and trolling they had no interest in playing the game. We had just come off a full moon so they’ve probably been pigging out for days.
We cleared the lines and headed back to the dock at 3pm feeling like someone crapped on our birthday cake. The tournament high and delusions of grander are gone. Just one small dolphin in the box after 8 hours of aggressive fishing. Fishing was great but the catching…not so much.
We pulled into our slip at Pirates Cove and went straight to the weigh station to check the standings and the tournament high was back. Not only was our 6.74 pound dolphin worth weighing in, it was the first place dolphin worth 1500.00. UNBELIEVABLE !
Thank You Treasure Coast Builders Association for another enjoyable tournament, dinner was great this year. Tournament photo provided by Don Youngelaus.
Get hooked up with Reel Busy Charters for a Stuart Florida Fishing Charter or Bahamas fishing Adventure. It’s yellowfin tuna time in the Bahamas so give us a call and let’s go catch’m. Call Capt. Wayne, 772-341-6609 www.reelbusycharters.com