14 West Palm Beach Fishing Club • Capt. George Mitchell – During his dolphin and sword- fish presentation at the club last year this seasoned pro offered the following advice: Determine the location of your ‘Alpha’ spots before you go offshore. George subscribes to Hiltons sea condition service, www.hiltonsoffshore.com, where he gathers intel on sea surface temperature, current edges and other important hot spot indicators in advance of his dolphin trip. When on the water he says a pair of Fuji stabilized binoculars is one of his most valued pieces of equipment for finding birds, weedlines and debris. Bait rods are another valued tool. “Sometimes the dolphin are keyed in on a specific bait, especially baits that are holding under weedlines or debris like small blue runners. We catch them for bait using small jigs or sabiki rigs and fire them right back out,” commented Mitchell. “If you come across a nice piece of lumber be sure to work it longer than you would a weedline. Prospecting with surface poppers and deep dropping metal jigs works well.” George also advises to have what he calls a ‘Holy Cow’ rod on the ready, “You just never know what is going to swim up to the boat; being prepared for that moment is critical because you may only have a few seconds to present a bait to that huge dolphin or blue marlin.” • Capt. Scott Hamilton – It’s a safe bet to say that no club member catches or guides more anglers to dolphin on fly tackle than Scott. “I almost always head offshore to where I had action the previous days before. Bait, birds and floating debris on the weedline are all indicators that I look for. If there’s no bait under the weeds I don’t spend much time there,” said Scott, who prefers using clear intermediate fly lines, not bright colored floating or sinking lines. “You’ll catch fish on them, but when they run back down into the school I think the bright lines spook the other fish.” Scott usually cruises the edge of productive looking lines casting a teaser rod to lure fish out from beneath the weeds and then having his clients cast minnow imitation flies. When fish are encountered live or dead chum keeps the fish within casting range for his clients. “The great thing about fly fishing for dolphin is that you can literally tease big fish out of the school. A good fly caster can repeatedly present the fly to the largest fish and quickly take it away, which gets the fish super aggressive and fired up. It’s unique to fly fishing and a thing of beauty. The fish just goes nuts.” • Capt. Bouncer Smith – Few South Florida captains are as proficient as Bouncer when it comes to catching dolphin, or any other game fish for that matter. He could fill volumes on the sub- ject of dolphin fishing, here’s a few of his very valuable tips. “Even when we troll for dolphin we always take some live bait with us offshore, that way when you hook up you can use the live baits to keep the other fishinterested. Nothinggetsdolphinmore fired up than chumming them with live bait. Baby blue runners that we catch under weedlines are some of my favorite dolphin baits. Don’t use bar jacks, they are no good,” said Bouncer who added, “You want to have a big bait in the well too. If you are in a bunch of schoolies and a 50+ pound dolphin swims into the mix you don’t want to throw a small bait at him, you’ll never get it past the schoolies. The big bait is just what that big fish is looking for.” When trolling, Bouncer advises to troll into the current, usually due south. When trolling north, with the current, he suggests using a zig-zag pattern. “You don’t want to troll with the current for any length of time for two reasons, first you’ll gettoofar fromhomeand second, when you hook fish, you’ll get off the school too quickly. Big fish swim into the cur- rent.” Bouncer says that frigate birds find a lot of fish for him, not the ones flying in lazy circles hundreds of feet in the air, but the birds that are actively moving, especially birds that are working to the south. “When you are trolling you want to be dragging a 2” to 3” inch in diameter teaser that is green and yellow. I use a big Mold Craft teaser. The image you are trying to create is that there is a dolphin feeding behind your boat.” If there is a due east or due west wind Bouncer will fly a kite off one side of the boat while trolling, ide- ally along a weedline or noticeable edge. “We troll a single hook ballyhoo out of the kite and set it so the back half of the bait is just skipping across the water. It looks like a flying fish and it is totally weedless. It drives the fish crazy.” Capt. Scott Hamilton Capt. Bouncer Smith (l)