Mystery Fish

[fishskipper]

How many of you have ever had a pin pop and wonder what you got? Tunas being caught around you, You would think you got one too. Well this actauly happened about three weeks ago. I'm on a friends new boat , a 26ft Sea Hunt w/ twin 150 yamahas 4 stroke. Man this thing will fly. I ain't use to going 40 kts. Anyhow we bottom fished for a while and limited out. Then we took off on the troll. We could see the fleet out ahead all knotted up and when we got there we could see they were trolling around a big pod of porpoise with the occasional tuna bite. I've had really good success doing this in the past, but sometimes you just have to stick with it. Finally, PLINK, got one on. Mind you this will be the first tuna in this rig. But we gotta get it in and its about to spool us. I put the angler in the bow and we start towards the fish and got some line back.. It stays deep for a while, then it comes back up and peels the line back again . The whole time the pod of dolphins are all around us. This fish would go deep and then come back up. Weird but I've seen tuna do that before. This went on for about 45 minutes/ About spooled us again. I see the line coming back up and headed right for the dolphins. As the fish comes out of the water I realize it ain't no tuna Its a dolphin . about a 200 lber........ Geez, we got as much line back as we could and then cut her off. It was hooked in the mouth and I hope it was ok, but thats the first time I have ever had that happen. Has this ever happened to anyone else?

[Reelcommocean]

Happened to my buddy in Mexico. But the porpoise swam up to the boat to let them release him. And like you said, his buddies hung around him. Never happend to me though.

[flatbottom]

I have to say this !

You are a great rigger. They have awesome eye sight. $40 knots ! ? Did ya wear goggles? Sounds like a great boat.....tight lines

Beside the two posts here I have never heard of catching a dolphin mammal. I have heard that they can strip a bait and not get hooked though. Fishing for tiderunner trout in the DE bay back in the day the dolphin would strip the lines of trout and not get hooked. I bet you were surprised when the profile surfaced....flat

[mike hennessy]

in hawaii we used to get out marlin baits taken by dolphins, so you just rip of the tag off the top of a beer/soda can and rubberband it to the tail of the tuna and the sonar of the dolphin usually prevents them from eatin it

i have had 3 dolphins eat live baits for big tuna in the spinner groups, they seam to be the dumbist of them all.

they will come close to get the hook out but then panic and you have to break them off, i feel bad but not our fault,

tunas will leave the school of porpoise in 5 minutes, if its a dolphin it stays with them forever,

good luck

mike
cabo-matapalo.com

[babalaza]

Fortunately never had a dolphin on the line!

mystery catches were a red snapper on a seastar+ballyhoo while slow trolling, and some wierd skinny fish that looked like a giant herring with huge teeths while we were on a mackerel school. Big trevallys on marlin lures were a bit wierd to me too.

[waynofish]

Got one last year in C.R. on a circle rigged dink bait on a 30--in the mouth--What a blast!!! took awhile to figure out what it was. Got another on a 130 later in the year while trolling for big yellowfins that got snagged just in front of the dorsal. Several years ago, also in C.R. caught two during the year on 130's while trolling for big yellowfins, they were lassoed around the tail. Didn't take long to get them cut off so all went back healthy but maybe slightly confused. Have pulled off a couple more possabilities down there. At first it's hard to tell untill you realize the school/herd/or whatever they're called are staying with your mystery "fish". I have also had an encounter while live baiting off FL years ago. I don't think they like me anymore.

[Succession]

I have had Two Tones get foul hooked, and one in the mouth. Rare very rare.

That is some pullage though.

[Canyon Runner]

Never heard one caught on the troll before but always was amazed it did not happen more often.

We've hooked at least 6 at night chunking in the canyons. Luckily since when we are chunking we only use circle hooks they were all hooked in the corner of the mouth and we were able to cut them off close to the hook except for one.

That one very interesting event occurred a few years back when Capt. Phil Dulanie went to cut off the leader right at the hook in one of the porpoises mouths when a second porpoises came out from under the boat and almost took Phil's hand off. Clearly they thought their friend was in danger and were looking to help out. The hooked porpoise took off and the line broke above the leader. Hopefully it made it out OK.