Be smart to catch a dolphin

The have been plenty of reports locally of fishermen and women reeling in dolphin, also known as Mahi Mahi or Dorado. They are a strange looking fish, so you'll have no trouble knowing if you've caught one.

To stand the best chance of pulling one in, follow these four great tips from the Associated Content website. Read the full version here

Tip one When trolling for dolphin have a mixed spread of lures. Smaller lures, less than five inches close to the boat and one or two lures over ten inches long further back. Be flexible, if you know fish are in the area, but not biting change your trolling speed. Faster is normally better in a slow bite, slower more effective in a good bite. Swap the larger lures close and the smaller lures back. Change things if they aren't working, but don't fix something that is not broke.

Tip two Live bait is often the ticket on a calm day. If you find yourself surrounded by good size school dolphin that just won't eat, welcome to my world. Here is a big tip to get them to bite, live shrimp or small live pilchards. If you are lucky enough to have a bait well full of live pilchards, live chum with them. That is release a few dozen around the boat when you find fish. The pilchards will run right back to the boat if you are in clean deep water and bring the fish to you. Live shrimp work as well, give the fish a few freebies and then put a hook in one of the shrimp. Once you have one hooked, leave that one in the water and try chunk baits. Once you have one on the others will normally start feeding.

Tip three Feed the bait to attract the fish. Take a block or two of chum and a large mesh chum bag or box. If you drift and chum a large weed patch or line you can attract the bait from the line to your boat. Take that opportunity to catch a few of the weed line livies and use them for bait. This trick has saved my butt more than once! It is a last resort technique most of the time, but I am using it more often around huge weed patches on calm days.

Tip four Dolphin love dolphin! Rig one of the school dolphins on a stout outfit and do some big game fishing. Some of the biggest dolphins caught are trade ups from smaller dolphin along with a big blue marlin on occasion wanting to butt in on the fun. That's the reason for the stout rod.

And here's a pic of one.

Good luck and tight lines!

When you get to Florida, be sure to call in on Anna Maria Island, a little gem of a place off the Gulf Coast. Check out www.annamaria.com for the very best in vacation rentals on this paradise island.

Fishing hot, hot, hot

Hi there fish fans,

Not much news to bring you this week, other than that the fishing is still absolutely amazing. As Paul Roat writes in the Anna Maria Islander this week: 'Sounding like a broken CD, this week’s refrain is the same on the fishing front: terrific. Tarpon continue to be everywhere, from the beach to Tampa Bay. Fish up to 120 pounds are being caught.
'Mackerel are starting to hit lures in the passes. Trout and redfish are thick in the bays. Catch-and-release snook are still along the beach.
'Offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, grouper, amberjack and snapper also are easy prey for fishers. And sharks are swarming in backwaters as well as open Gulf waters.'

Well, we get bored of saying this, if you're not on Anna Maria Island fishing, what on Earth are you doing?

Don't just visit Anna Maria Island, stay here. For the very best in vacation rental properties visit www.annamaria.com and spend your vacation in a real home from home.

Stop reading, get fishing

Morning fishing buddies!
Well, this might be a first, but today's advice to you if you happen to be anywhere near Anna Maria Island at the moment is to stop reading this blog! I don't mean forever, of course, just right now.
Stop reading and get out fishing. That's because the news coming in to us from the water is that the fishing at the moment is as red hot as the weather. And then some.
All the captains around Anna Maria are reporting limit catches of just about everything they throw a line out for. Snook, trout, tarpon, mackerel, sharks. You name it, it's being hauled over a gunwale right now.
So, and this is a once-only offer, we don't mind if you stop reading Fishy Tales for just a minute, get yourself some bait and get your hooks out there into the shiny blue waters surrounding our seaside home. Anna Maria Island is often called an angler's paradise.
And right now it's living up to that name.

Tight lines!

Silver kings still rule

It’s still tarpon time off Anna Maria Island - and some of the boat captains are reporting some excellent action.
Tarpon are being spotted and caught off the beaches, in the passes and near Egmont Key, and even on the seagrass beds in the bays.
Paul Roat in the AM Islander says offshore fishing for amberjack, snapper and grouper is great in the Gulf of Mexico. The grouper bite is moving farther from shore as the water warms, but the hits keep on coming. There also are some cobia mixed in around the tarpon pods, and reports of dolphins being caught offshore.
Captain Zach Zacharias, meanwhile, in the AMI Sun has some excellent advice for those heading out on the water right now. Make sure when heading out this time of the year to carry plenty of water, hats, glasses. sunscreen and loose light weight clothing.
A working VHF radio that is turned on is a real plus for you and your passenger’s safety when an unexpected squall blows up and endangers your way back to port. Remember that cell phones generally do not work once you are three to four miles offshore. Graphite is one of the best conductors of electricity, so if there is lightning about, lay your fishing rods down horizontally in the boat and get the heck off the water.

Tarpon time!

Okay, so it might be time to head to the gym to work on your guns because it would seem that tarpon time is here!
If you don't know what we're talking about, you have never hooked into one of these hard-fighting monsters of the deep.
According to Anna Maria Islander fishing correspondent, Paul Roat, 'the tarpon are off the beaches, roaming the shallows near Egmont Key and swarming off Whitney Beach on north Longboat Key. Best catch to date is Tommy Price with his 125-pound silver king, but there must be some bigger ones out there.'
There sure are, and you should be out there catching them.
Check out this awesome video of a massive tarpon doing what tarpon do best.