catching dolphins

[slacky]

In all the years I have been fishing I have never heard of anyone catching a dolphin.I have fished with live mullet chasing jew,and while fishing have seen dolphins rounding up the mullet then attacking.Always worried about a hookup,but this never happens.Has anyone out there ever hooked one or are they just to smart?.ps they would put up a great fight,baybe better than a marlin

[magicpudding]

It's been done quite a few times. They are caught occasionally while livebaiting for billfish. Over the past 4 years, I have seen it happen once. We regularly have them take the baits, however rarely do they hook up. The unlucky time was nearly 4 years ago, and we ended up chasing the bloody think at 15knots so I could get the as much line back as possible.
They fight hard, but you don't feel too good about your catch!

I think jeffo had one a year or so back that simply lay at the back of the boat waiting for them to get the hooks out.

CJ

[Billo]

I have had them pull gars off swim baits and skip baits , but never hooked up .....luckily

[Vic1]

Couple seem to be hanging around the 4 beacons at the moment (one with a prominent nick out of it dorsal)......get a nice feed on our cube trail and grab the odd livie off the line when they get sick of cubed pilchards

[gogecko]

I see em come close to me in the Broadwater. I just pull my lines in until they move on. If they hang around longer than 20-30 mins, I move on.

[Sportfish_5]

Phew - I thought this was gunna be about something else

Most of the time they seem to have a real knack of getting bait off a hook without getting tagged

Cheers

Greg

[slacky]

Thanks for the replies.Very interesting.Has anyone played one to the boatand how would you rate it for fighting .

[masterdusky]

slacky....played it to the boat and how would we rate it ..??r u serious ???

[JewseeTHAT]

Mate managed to hook one once... played it for a bit until its screams finally got the better of him and he cut it off. Not something he ever wants to do again.

[longone]

Gday all. Al from Lively lures at the Sunshine coast was unfortunate enough to hook one of these a few years back while trolling for trout at Hervey Bay. Apparently it new straight up there was something wrong and swam directly to the back of the boat. After that it layed on the surface perfectly still while he removed the hooks and then swam away unharmed. Intelligent? S#%t yes!

[Duyz72]

Slacky - I hope that this is a just a case of foot in mouth disease. If anyone has ever actually caught a dolphin I am sure they would be carrying a sorry feeling inside for quite some time. Rating them as a sport fish? I am sure in this category we should ask about turtles, dugong, minkies, pelicans, albatross, sea eagles or the humble seagull?

[Fishinmishin]

I find 2 hook snell rig with points imbedded will help your hookup rates. Just let it run for 3 secs with no drag.....then......flick the lever to........ 'JOKE' mode. OK inky......it was a joke. See....ha...ha .
I have had them often grab rigged pillies in a playfull manner when fishing from Amity bungalows jetty. There was pleanty of real livies around so I like to think they did it as a bit of a play with us. When they come near the boat in the bay I usually find a small fresh caught mac tuna from the eskie and throw it to them. They often then pick it up and bring it to the side of the boat while holding it in their mouth to show it off to us then disapear into the deep. Mabey they eat it mabey they don't but it gives me a smile regardless.
Cheers, Jay

[bidkev]

Couple seem to be hanging around the 4 beacons at the moment (one with a prominent nick out of it dorsal)......get a nice feed on our cube trail and grab the odd livie off the line when they get sick of cubed pilchards

That's the one I hooked onto. It broke me once and went on to pick up my baits about another dozen times without once getting hooked. It came right up to the back of the boat and I didn't see any tackle in it's mouth so I don't know how they manage to not get hooked when they can break your main line??????

The bugger has made me move the last 3 times out there. It must've been there for over 6 months now.

kev

[magicpudding]

Slacky, we managed to get to the windon leader before the we cut off the one I hooked. It probably took around 10mins to catch up to it. It was a rather large cow with a youngster beside it. I felt very bad to have hooked a dolphin and definately didnt consider it to be good sport.
Sometimes we will pitch them our old baits, after which they sometimes surface next to the boat with them in their mouths, as Jay said. Thats good fun.

CJ

[slacky]

Dont get me wrong fellas,just never heard of any being hooked.I definitely dont want to catch one.Probably not something people want to talk about.thanks everyone,some great stories here.