Went out yesterday 2/1 in the afternoon and this morning from 10:30 -1:30. We hit the falling tides and turn and the redfish were biting. The thing both yesterday on the ICW and today up the cooper I had 1-2 dolphin literally set up on me. They were definitely waiting for me to throw the fish back. I tried to ease the fish back in the water let them get there breath and swim away with a chance. Lets be real they had NO CHANCE. These dolphin were insane and aggressive. Today was i got the fish to the boat they were literally under the boat looking up at me 4"es under the water. I am pretty sure if I didn’t yank a few reds out of the water they were goners!
So the way to piss dolphin off and to get them to back off is to fill your live well and put the fish there for a bit wait for them to back off then release. It was insane! (And yes they were slot reds I would not risk putting a under or over slot fish in the live well and then try to explain to DNR that I was being harassed by dolphin)
As for the report we caught 15 or so reds 5 trout yesterday. We headed up the Cooper today and caught 10 Reds. Hunted a few schools but could not get them to eat. Blew them up with a cast or two. I was fishing a Zman TRD with a Ned rig jig head. Colors working were “the deal” and “california craw”. I am big on the finesse bait guy this time of year.
Good luck and get out there.
Need the great whites to sort porpoises out
Love em or hate em, they’re smart critters. What they were doing is a learned behavior. Smarter than many people I know.
“Apathy is the Glove into Which Evil Slips It’s Hand”, but really, who cares?
quote:
Originally posted by DFreedom
Love em or hate em, they’re smart critters. What they were doing is a learned behavior. Smarter than many people I know.
“Apathy is the Glove into Which Evil Slips It’s Hand”, but really, who cares?
I totally agree. I literally had to think quick as I was not going to continually kill the redfish in that spot I like to fish by feeding this dolphin. So I limited my catch to three between my girlfriend and I then used my trolling motor to go up on the flat and release them there. I figured this would give them a fighting chance.
It was just weird to have two dolphin in two different spots one up the ICW and one up the Cooper. I have been fishing these areas for years and never been bothered/harassed like that. I ran into it a few years ago up the Wando too. The minute you hook a fish they literally swim under the boat.
In my experience, Redfish is a primary food target for dolphins inshore during the winter. They are smart!
Had one eat a dink we threw back right next to the boat, scared the sh*t out of me and the better half… was pretty neat to see but didn’t want to feed em so we chucked balls of crushed ice 15ft the opposite direction of the direction I would release the fish to try to give them a chance… it worked on the first 2 or 3 then he got wise to our trick. We ended up just moving because the bite shut down with all his commotion.
Fishing Nerd
“skilled labor isn’t cheap, cheap labor isn’t skilled”