Dolphin be here mon
Story/Photos by Matt Badolato
First, thanks CFOA and FSFA for supporting and organizing this tagging opportunity. It was a great experience and I sure learned a lot about dolphin. Big thanks to the scientist of the day Don Hammond for his expertise and passion for them fish. That guy sure is dedicated to learning everything there is to know about the dolphin and sharing it with anyone who will listen.
The purpose of this trip offshore was to tag a dolphin, at least 25lbs, with one of two satellite tracking tags. One of the tags will remain in the fish for 30 days and the other will stay put for 6 months until it pops off and floats to the surface. Data is recorded every 20 minutes.
Thanks a lot Don (aka “don”) for the ride out, Mikey Wahoo, Randy (aka “randy”), and Singlefin Steve.
Well, to make a long story short, I don’t think we could have had a much better day to tag a couple dolphin. Early in the morning the radio sounded like an auction block. “Do I hear 25lbs?” “We got a 30lber boatside” “Ten miles away we got one!” ”We got one, wait too small” “This is Topcat or Bosscat we got one here” “We got a big one, two miles away” “SOLD to the gentleman in the Palmetto!” The first two fish were tagged
Massive schools of flying fish were popping up all around, all the time. We had consistent action all day long. Cruise around for 45 mins to an hour, catch a nice fish. Cruise around, catch a couple more. It was like that until we headed home in the afternoon. Our first fish was a healthy 25lber, but the tagging vessel was already en route for a closer fish. That one got a special tag. A little later we pull in another big cow around 25lbs. Then a sailfish. Then don feels the urge to bottom fish, but we troll on. Then a couple more nice bulls. Then another nice bull.
Every fish was caught on circle hook rigged ballyhoo, minus one dolphin. I was pretty skeptical at first, but Mikey’s ballyhoo hooked the dolphin perfectly every time even without needing to drop back. Of course, most of the fish were big enough to swallow the ballys whole, but they still worked great.
All day long we had sailfish messing up our nice ballyhoo courtesy of Bionic Bait. No small dolphin around except for one big peanut that swam up behind one of our hooked fish. Steve got some crazy underwater pictures of the dolphin and was almost speared by an enraged sailfish while he was snorkeling and taking pictures boatside.
It really was just “one of those days that really makes you love to troll”.
Thanks again everyone involved for making this happen and I am grateful to have been a part of it.
Tight lines, east swells and light offshores,
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