Dolphin Fish Ocean Treats!

You know you’ve experienced something special when what ever it was seems to create more astonishment and feeling after the fact than actual during it.

Jason Franklin and I had arrived on a white sand flat off the Island of Grand Bahama one afternoon with the anticipation of throwing at some of those monster permit that can at times be found there. I quickly upgraded my tippet accordingly and tied on my fly which seemed more reminiscent of an average sized welcome mat than a crab pattern and managed to swindle my way to the bow by reliving Jason’s last permit only a few days before. I was about to deliver my lengthy thought process on how it was in fact my turn to fish in hope of diverting any discussion on how I blew the last 3 shots but when you fish 50 or more days a year together words often aren’t needed. The crooked smurk on his chops said it all ‘ Save the shit Greg, I’ll just pole ‘. I felt guilty, I think, and immediately proceeded to my position on the bow. It was probably the permit gods at work, having taken offence at my BS because the squall we had anticipated to move away made a U turn so no sooner had we started we were storing rods and making a move. There was absolutely no wind away from the squall so we decided to run offshore for a mile or so and just chill in the deep blue.

Quick, Quick, was the next thing that broke the serenity of drifting aimlessly in a 16 ft flats boat on the open Ocean. A small school of tuna started busting all around the skiff. Off came the welcome mat and on went a ‘ sock ‘ !! Thump. First cast and I was into a skipjack on a 9 wt. Pound for pound, even though these were small at around 6-8 pounds, there really is little else out there than can compete in stamina with these things. One was enough, especially as we had failed to bring the camera, so away went the rods and out came that special silence only a flat calm Ocean can deliver.

With both of us now comfortably back in La La land we happened to catch something in our periphery at the exact same time. When we turned to eye ball it there was nothing. More La La and then in unison ‘ did you see that ‘ ?? It was a fin that suggested we were in the presents of the mother of all sharks. It was hardly moving so we fired up the engine and slowly put putted over to it. As we got within 20 yds or so we cut the engine and just coasted as not to spook it. As we crawled to a stop this thing started turning around like something from Red October creating something like brown shorts !! For just a moment there we expected to actually live that scene from Jaws where Robert Shaw, well you know !! Too our relief we realized that this was no rogue beast intent on devouring everything it came in contact with but rather a docile whale shark. Over it sauntered without a care in the world and parked itself up against the boat. I was a little nervous to say the least as I had an encounter with one of these in Costa Rica in virtually an identical scenario. Myself and a couple of clients were drifting and throwing flies at acres of feeding pacific bonito in the Golfo Dulce when all of a sudden there was a solid Thumph and the stern half of the 23 foot center console I was guiding from came 3 feet vertically out of the water. All I saw from my position at the wheel was the soles of a pair of deck shoes. One angler on the bow went over the same rail he had his knees braced on for casting. I then spun around in my attempt to work out what in the $%#$ had just happened and spied the rear 15 feet of a huge fish under the stern of the boat. I still could not see the head. My attention then went back to my swimming sport who I quickly yanked back aboard. Thankfully we had him back in the boat before he had time to see this thing. Funnily enough I had the exact same shorts on that day too !!

Having never experienced this before I retold the story a few times before someone explained to me that the whale shark sometimes, when encountering a large log or some other floating debris of size, that they rub their heads against it to rid themselves of parasites. I have no idea how accurate that is but it made perfect sense to me. Anyway, possibly expecting that again I leaned over and scratched the fishes head with what little nails I have and then Jason took the push pole and started rubbing a lot harder. I thought I’d seen a few things in my time but this fish was absolutely loving it. It would casually rock from side to side so that the scratch area increased and then jolted forward bumping the side of the boat. Gently this time thank God !! It was like – Oh yeah – right there - Oh yes – left a bit, no down a bit – yeah right therrrre !!! I know these things have big mouths but I could have sworn this thing was grinning !!! We were like two 10 yr old school girls giggling away having accidentally seen Henry’s pee pee behind the bike shed.

This was just too amazing not to document so we decided to make a run for my apartment which flat out was probably a 15 minute run. We were no more than I/2 a mile from the beach but several miles down it from where I lived. The think was that as it was so calm and having marked the spot with GPS that we stood a decent chance of finding this fish again. After having almost run the skiff into my living room, I grabbed the camera and was back in the skiff in seconds. We hit our mark and began scanning the surface, moving a few hundred yards at a time in a figure of eight. We were about to give up when we spied the very tip of a fin along with following wake about 200 yds closer to shore. We ran to it hoping for the whale shark. We soon realized however that our whale shark experience would have to be documented in mind only as what we saw was not what we had hoped for. It was in fact better.

Instead of the whale shark we had come across singles and pairs of fining dorado, dolphin fish, mahi mahi, whatever you want to call them that were swimming leisurely through very small, scattered patches of sargasso weed. The first pair we saw came within casting range but with the sea so calm and water so clear it became very obvious they were exceptionally spooky. Some had colorings much like a wide zebra strip which we assumed is an adopted ‘ pattern ‘to enable the fish to better blend in with the weed. The dilemma we had now however was that the only way we could maneuver into position was by the engine. The 20 foot push pole was just not going to cut it in 1500 feet of water. A few more of the fish had come close enough to cast to and we did hook one which created enough disturbance to make some others join the fun so a double hook up was achieved very quickly. However those others that would follow the hooked fish would lose interest and swim away. We landed and released both the fish and found ourselves right back at square one. We could see fish every so often cruising along, the very tips of their tails showing above the surface or we could see the gold and green/blue coloring but if we started the motor they would either sound or when we got to them they were disturbed enough not to eat our offerings. Oh for a bag of pilchards we thought !! It was frustrating to accept this as they were so near yet so far and it’s not every day one can catch ‘ tailing ‘ dolphin from a skiff. They would not travel far for the fly and much like some tarpon they had to be fed. Normally dolphin are very ferocious feeders and you only need get the fly in the water somewhere and strip it fast and they will attack like green, gold and blue torpedos, especially if one is already hooked to one or they are ‘ encouraged ‘ with chum/chunk. Neat to watch and experience like that but a very straight forward proposition none the less. What was happening in front of us however was very much a different scenario and was making for very interesting fishing. The purist in me was now relishing the challenge.

How could we make this work we thought. Fortunately the proverbial bulb went off and we started slapping the water with the rod tip in an attempt to get their attention and low and behold it worked. We ‘ teased ‘ several more fish to within casting range. Some ignored the fly and others we could temp. After a couple more acrobatic displays it all went dead and the Ocean quiet had returned.

It all came to a natural conclusion and again neither I nor Jason had to say anything as we stored the rods and jumped out of the hole. As we leveled off into the dropping sun a glance and a quick nod to each other was all that was needed to validate the experience.