Dolphin fish?

[major Mitchell]

Here in sunny Western Australia 38deg C (100 deg F) two days ago it is coming up Dolphin season.
Having never fished for them I was wondering how the pro's do it?
We have some FADs off the coast, the closest being in about 100m (300ft) of water.
I have seen video of people catching them out there on live baits but have not seen or read much on what lures to use.
Big lures, small lures, colour, teasers, no teasers, speed?
Lay it on me please.

[capt. jakeg]

I dont know how it is down under, but here on the east coast, they will eat just about anything. We use many methods here- live baiting, trolling, casting lures, and chunking. They have a pretty hefty appetite and shouldnt take a whole lot of trickery to catch them. If you are casting lures, any swim bait will work. The important thing is that IF they dont bite it in the first three casts, switch lures and try something new. They do loose interest very quickly, but repeatedly changing lures will keep them fired up.

[gottaflylee]

If you are casting to them, I would say "poppers"! They love them. When we are baiting and they slow down I will fire them off again with a popper...
For trolling, here in NC, Pink works well and as you may have read, we like to pull "Sea Witches". I will rig some with a doubble hook and put strip on it and fix it so it will skip...
Good luck, and let us know how you do with pictures...we love pictures...

[Sea Draggin]

My best day EVER for dolphins came on naked ballyhoo's and 1" chunks of False Albacore. Never put lure one in the water and ran out of places to put them.

To add to this, if I was fishing FAD's. I might troll by them a couple of times to pick off some of the larger fish, but then I would just back over to them and start chunking with Albacore. After that, a couple of high speed passes to pick off any wahoo's and move on to the next one.

[FinRazr]

If all that fails rig a couple of your nicest horse ballyhoo and go marlin fishing........guaranteed to draw a darado strike Try small red or pink trolling squid 4-5"(If trolling)

[luv2fish67]

They are savage eaters, and will hit damn near anything, but I have had the best sucess with small lures, like tuna feathers...green& yellow and blue & white. The key is to have some pitch baits ready, as there is usually more than one. The others will follow the hooked fish to the boat, so leave him in the water, till you can get a bait to the others. Always leave one on the line to keep the others interested or you can throw some chunks to them. If you can keep them around the boat , you can really load up! Good luck.

[Big Jay]

This is catered a bit more to you aussies.

Small feathers rigged with a strip of a skipjack or mackerel belly for trolling. Thats a dolphin killer right there.

Casting, like was said, switch up lures. If they are hungry they will eat anything. If they are picky, get yourself a sub-surface jerk bait. Something like a sea striker Gotcha http://www.seastriker.com/gotcha/ Work the bait in jerks, keeps the mahi excited.

Bait fishing...if you can't find FAD's....go round up a bunch of yesterdays newspapers. Open them flat and spread them on an area where there are no boats. Come back in an hour and fish em!

Kinda cheating but not. Use fluoro 30-40# test, if they are leader shy go to tying your mainline right to the CIRCLE HOOK

Use circles, way easier to deal with unhooking mahi when you are bailing them and you can return some back if just fun fishing.

[BlueH20Boss]

If you happen to hit into a school of them, the first guy who hooks up should keep his fish hooked up and IN THE WATER. They are very very vibrantly colored up when they are in a feeding frenzy as well as hooked up, So by keeping the one in the water hooked up, it will keep his buddies hanging around and interesting, usually helping out to get some more hooked up.... Just a theory, but it is one i am sure a lot of the guys on here including me agree with.

[joeksr]

If you have one in the water and the school leaves, Give him line. He may go find his buddies and bring them back with him when you reel him back in.

Joe

[randall r]

we always back up and cast to a few high flyers on the way home...dolphin will school up under anything that provides a shadow. bouys and man made objects or weed lines... we also catch a lot when they are not the targeted species..heres an albino