I received an email from a reader that amazed me. In all my years of fishing I never heard of anyone hooking a porpoise (bottle nosed dolphin). Well, KingMe000 never heard of it either, but he hooked one while fishing with a live mullet in the Intracoastal Waterway in North Florida. Of course it spooled him and kept on going.
I always thought they were too smart to take a baited hook. I guess I was wrong! I wonder – has anyone else ever hooked up with one? Comment below!
Comments
In my 30 years of fishing I have never nor have I heard of anyone hooking a bottlenose dolphin.
Robert
i live in louisiana and sometimes when we get on the speckled trout thick you start to attract the dolphins and sometimes they eat half the fish off your hook and i have had them hook themselves several times trying to eat the speck off my line!
i actually saw dolphins rushing flounder out the water the other day,they were coming out of the water with flounder in thier mouths and throw them around like frizbees! i have seen dolphins do some wierd stuff but seem to be fine with people even enjoy the company?
Offshore I have had dolphins taking fish from my hook, and yes, a couple times they get hooked. Once I had a ‘Mom’ actually teaching heer calf to do the same. We had to move the boat because they were getting all the fish!
Last winter three of us were fishing in Sebastian inlet and had a dolphin steal a Sheepshead from each of us. This mammal was the talk of the inlet for several days as he was stealing fish from many people. Been fishing the inlet for many years never saw or heard of this behavior.
WHEN WADE FISHING I ALWAYS CAUTION CLIENTS NOT TIE STRINGERS OF FISH TO THEMSELFS UNLESS THEY WANT TO GO BOBBING ACROSS THE BAY.
Watched a guy off the pier in Virginia Beach snag a dolphin. It broke water twice and never slowed downs. Spooled about 300 feet of 50 lb test. ZzzzzZZzzzzZZZzzzzz into the sunset.
Looks like a porpoise is smarter than we think! I have watched them literally toss a ten pound redfish into the air and catch it several times – almost like they were playing with it. I was tempted to try and take it away! Never hooked one though.
Yesterday I was fishing under the causeway bridge at st simons island in ga. a dolphin hit my line (i dont know if he swam by and it snagged him or not) but he was off like a torpedo. he broke water about 4 times before spooling me. it was a crazy experience. it almost seemed as if he was toying with me before taking off.
TODAY, April 6th 2009…Fishing at the Skyway Pier in Tampa Bay mostly for Spanish Mackerel and possibly a kingfish or grouper. I was helping my fiance with her sabiki rig when we both looked over to see our biggest rod making an incredible “whizzzzzzzzzzzzzz” noise…we were both like WTF! Only 10 minutes earlier I had rigged an 8″ blue runner onto a weighted wire leader with a BIG hook, hoping to land a kingfish. As it turns out, a bottlenose dolphin surfaced seconds later with the bloody blue runner IN ITS MOUTH and the crazy “whizzzzz” sound continued…I tried to reel for about 2 seconds and realized I had ZERO chance and had my fiance cut the line with scissors. The whole ordeal was heart-pounding and completely took us both by surprise. Odds are I will never hook a bottlenose dolphin again, but I will also NEVER forget the day when I hooked a bottlenose dolphin at the Skyway Pier. PS I hope the dolphin spat out the hook after he was done eating my blue runner. Thanks again Flipper.
While fishing off the 518th bridge in Satelite Beach, FL, I used a large mullet 3′ under a big bobber to try and catch a biggie. Well, a porpoise grabbed it and made tracks. Line was screaming off my reel. When I tightened the drag, it turned towards me and I reeled in like crazy. It flew past me and went under the bridge and broke off. Luckily, I only lost my leader. What a thrill!
This past weekend, my wife and I were bottom fishing out about 15m from the Panama City, FL. coast.We were harassed all day with a family of porpoises. We were in about 90′of water and lost several large “sow” red snapper within about 20′ or so of the boat.I actually jerked a couple of snapper and one red grouper from the mouth of one of the largest! First time in my life that I’ve encountered this problem.
I hooked one yesterday. It was a baby not more than 45 pound I actually got it to the shore. It took a big piece of cut bait not too far offshore. The funny thing is that the rest of the dolphins waited for Him to get back in the water.
I was back bay fishing in 3′ of water in Naples Fl. with a large shiner. My line took off like a rocket. I couldn’t stop or turn it. I tightened up my drag and broke the line. I never saw it, but, a minute later there were several dolphins feeding in the bay. I assume I hooked one.
We’ve had them eat snapper, kings, and tuna off the lines, but the only one we ever hooked was years ago bill fishing. During the excitement and chaos of a big marlin bite, our inexperienced boat driver backed down over two lines, tangling them in the props. After cutting the engines, we lost the fish, and my Dad volunteered to dive in and free the lines. Well, Flipper (a young one) grabbed a marlin lure that had floated up the leader, and as the line came tight got snagged. He couldn’t break the 130lb line or the 600 lb leader and went nuts. We hand-lined him to the boat, and was able to cut out the hooks, clean the wound and semi stich him up before releasing him. The entire pod of dolphins stayed around until we freed him.
I have been fishing the Gulf of Mexico this summer from Panama City and have had numerous encounters with dolphin taking Red Snapper and other fish from our lines. It is the worst I’ve ever seen! Our last trip out on Monday the 10th, we lost 8 fish to dolphin taking them off of our hooks after hookup.It is very annoying to have this happen.
Dolphin taking fish in the Gulf of Mexico is something akin to the seals who do the same thing off the coast of California. It’s a learned response, and more and more of them are learning it. Some people use (illegally) a form of fireworks/depth charges (on the west coast they call them seal bombs) to run the dolphin off. Since dolphin are protected, there’s not much you can do. If you try to move, they follow you!
Amazing. I had to search the web today to see if this is a regular occurrence and found this site and the comments. I’ll be darned if some of the comments aren’t from my area, panhandle of FL. We were out about 20 miles fishing the 4’ Ledge. When we pulled up we noticed 2 porpoise immediately came to the boat, we thought how cute and exciting. We dropped our lines caught a few fish, small red snapper and undersized grouper. We had to release all of them due to size and red snapper season closed. Then my wife’s line started to run, she fought it all the way to the boat where you could just see the shape of the fish, then “WHAM” the line starts spooling and I yell “it’s going to jump”. Well it never jumped but surfaced to take a breath, it was a porpoise. Well there was nothing I could do but cut the line before he spooled me. I sat there on the port rail thinking did I see what I thought I saw. A porpoise stole my fish. Well we went on fishing and again the same thing happened. I cut the line again, and then a third time only this time I didn’t have to cut the line. The line came free. We cranked up the motors and moved to another spot. I’m here to tell you these 2 porpoise knew just what the hell they were doing. Getting an easy meal. But I’m a bit concerned about the 2 lines I had to cut. I wonder if they aren’t out there running around with a hook in their mouth and 70 – 80 feet of line dragging along.
9-11-09 I was fishing off one of the jetties in Newport Beach Ca. today and felt my pole dive downward I started to reel in slowly and suddenly a 8 foot dolphin broke the surface then dove deep and snapped my line; he ate everything and shot out of the water for a good fifteen min. Hope he’s okay.
Yes in San Diego I was on an overnight party boat and we were fishing for yellow tails and we were using live Sardines and the lady next to me hooked a bottle nose and it was jumping like crazy. The line was cut immediatly by the deck hand. The captain and crew have never seen anything like it and these were seasoned fisherman. That day we caught no fish so it led me to wonder if the dolphin was just starving and took a chance or if the dolphin was not as smart as your usual dolphin or perhaps with the new FLUOROCARBON lines it not just fools the fish but dolphins also.
I cought a Gag Grouper in Tampa Bay and before I got it in the line ran down to the last layer. Shortly a dolphin came up for air and it had my fish. It chewed the grouper off and iI got my line back. It stayed for 1/2 hr hopeing for another free hand out but we didn’t fish till he left.Others have told of this happening to them in the shipping chanel also.
Yes I have. I’ve never heard of it either, and that is what brought me to this page. 11/13/10 Saturday pm off of Panama City Florida. Caught a snapper too small, immeadiatly hooked another. felt much better. The dolphin had been hanging around. He took my snapper we held the reel and broke off.
He looked familiar to me as he has this very large dangling appendage on his dorsel. He hangs at the State Park Pier driveing some fisherman nuts.
If he is the same one it is a very lazy Dolphin they call Steve.
I’d never seen it happen until last week, July, 2011 outside of Kodiak, AK: among a group of folks bottom fishing for halibut one spinning reel was dropped off the back of the boat to float a chunk of salmon for the heck of it. A large pod showed up and then Bam! …like catching a torpedo. The leader broke off before it even got halfway through the spool. Didn’t even touch the bale/drag.
They have bionic hearing and can hear rattling lures and corks for miles, I had to stop using them in that area because it is guarantee the whole pod will show up in minutes out of nowhere looking to eat my trout. They will race and even jump for your trout sometimes I had one leap several feet in the air and almost got my trout but I had landed it in a net and pulled it away just in time!
Two well trained bottle nose dolpnins came to our chumslick while yellowtail fishing and took 12 in a row. They just sat next to the boat looking at us waiting for the next hook up and ate it. Spooled us several times. Left the area really annoyed. Big pine key near Looe Key.
But you notice they never went after the baited hook! They grab the fish on your hook and take off. These mammals in the sea are way smarter than we give them credit!
Porpoise throwing flounder: Today I saw several Porpoise tossing a very large flounder around in the air several times. Each time the flounder hit the water there was a large splash. This was seen in Port Aransas Texas.