From Ron Brooks,
Your Guide to Saltwater Fishing.
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Terminal Tackle

This is an area that people spend a lot of money on, yet it’s an area that can be so simple. Remember, we are after dolphin. If something else jumps on our line, we want a reasonable chance at catching it, so we need terminal rigs – the business end of the line – to be beefy enough to handle them.

I use a five foot long, fifty pound test, stainless steel, wire leader. This is the standard wire leader found in any tackle shop, including the big box discount department stores. Why wire? Remember – you never know what you might find. A roving king mackerel or wahoo may jump on your trolled bait, and a monofilament leader will be sliced in half before you ever feel the fish.

”But, you can see the wire in all that clear water”, he said. Yes, but you are trolling and skipping a bait on the surface (more on that later).

I use a number 3 swivel on one end of the leader and a 7/0 single O’shaunessy hook on the other end. When I wrap the wire leader to the hook, I leave a one-half inch tip of the leader at a 90 degree angle to the hook. See one of the pictures for an illustration. This tip is used to hold the ballyhoo bait in place.

Bait and Rigging

By far my preference in bait both because of availability and success rate is ballyhoo. Fresh or brined are best, but flash frozen work well if you can get them from a reputable bait source. I place the point of the hook in and under the ballyhoo’s gill plate and run the hook down into the stomach. I force the hook point out the bottom of the fish so that the hook eye and leader are right at the mouth of the ‘Hoo and the hook is turned down under the belly of the bait.

This is where the leader tip comes in handy. I force the leader tip through the bottom and top jaw of the ballyhoo so that it protrudes just at the front of the top lip. With a tie wrap from an old loaf of bread, I wrap the bill and leader tip to keep the mouth of the ballyhoo closed, and then I break off the bill right at the leader.

Sometimes I may use a pink or chartreuse skirt available at most tackle shops. The skirt offers color and protection of the nose area of the bait, but it really is not necessary. Commercial nose cone type products are also available, but in my experience not really necessary. That leader tip works just fine.

Trolling

Dolphin usually prefer what I call a semi-hot bait. That is, not too slow and not too fast. I place a rod in a rod holder and let line back behind the boat. These are flat lines – ones that are not attached to an outrigger. I put one on each side of the boat back thirty to fifty yards. I run the trolling speed of the boat up until the bait is one the surface and “skipping” with the front of the bait just out of the water. Sometimes I will troll four rods, two way back fifty to sixty yards, one half way back and one bait right up close to the boat in the prop wash.

Technique

Finding and catching dolphin is easy if you follow some basics.

• Look for a weed line or any other kind of flotsam in the water. Dolphin will be under anything they can find to escape the sun.
• Troll the edge of the weed line heading one direction and then crossing and heading back the other direction.
• Vary the speed of your troll if you have not attracted a fish. Speed up or slow down – just break the pattern.
• Watch for flying fish. If you spook some flying fish while trolling, chances are dolphin will be in the area. They follow the baitfish.
• Look for birds – either a flock of birds diving or a solitary frigate bird. The flock of birds will usually be on a school of baitfish being chased by bonito or false albacore, but eh dolphin will be in the area as well. A solitary frigate bird will stay over a school of fish – sometimes solitary big fish – looking for an easy meal. It is wise to head their direction as well.

Simplicity

Everything we talked about can be done with minimal expense and literally no special tackle. Big rods, outriggers, and the like are generally not necessary. Dolphin are very cooperative fish and a bait that skips without spinning and twisting will catch fish if you fish where the dolphin live.