On Wednesday August 10th, I went fishing with my friend Captain Scott Crocker of Shackleford Charters. Barely 8 miles off the beach (in an area I fish my own boat all the time), we found a great weedline and started looking for dolphin.
We found an old stump covered in baitfish and started waiting…it wasn’t 5 minutes before I spotted a big cow dolphin and had her hooked up on 10lb test spinning gear. However, she made a big run and broke the line. Over the next hour, we managed to land several nice dolphin on spinning rods before I again hooked up with a big cow – 30 minutes later, I landed her – the SAME dolphin I had lost over an hour before (she had both hooks in her mouth)!!!
After we couldn’t find anymore roaming dolphin, we put out some baits and started trolling. A couple of cude and a small dolphin later a nd the starboard line started SCREAMING. It was my turn for the rod and I picked it up to watch the line empty from the reel. After the fish made its initial 300+ yd run, it rain straight towards the boat at high speed before going straight to the bottom. We got a glimpse of the fish (seeing a broad head) and I thought we had found a cobia…however, as I felt a methodical “thump thump thump” on the line, I started to wonder but quickly put the thoughts of tuna out of my mind. As I battled the beast, bottlenose dolphin appeared around the boat and roughly 100 yds away, very large fish started busting on the surface…TUNA.
After 25 minutes of fight on 20lb test, we gaffed the best – weighed in at 46lbs on certified scales.
