My first Mahi Mahi, and it's on a 40 dollar rod....!!

My first Mahi Mahi / Dolphin Fish.

It has finally happened.  My very first Dolphin Fish, and come to think about it, it seems that it is also my first real pelagic.  

It has taken a while to get one of these as on numerous occasions we have been dissapointed with our trips to the local FADs. 

This time we went back out to an FAD on the south western coast of New Caledonia.  The FADs are usually not very far from the barrier reef.

As we arrived we could see quite a few birds in the FAD area but they didn't seem active or feeding.  It felt as though something had just happened or is just about to happen.  

As you can see in the video we tracked down some bust ups but most of the time they were really small skipjack or bonito, depending on which country you are from.

We had a go at them to no avail.  We decided to get closer to the FAD and the conditions were exceptionaly calm so drifting around the FAD felt to be the best option.  We stared to jig a little and could see that some fish were appearing but very deep at 100m plus. They didn't seem to want to come up.

I had brought some frozen bonito that I decided to start cutting up and cubing.  I had some berley also in a berley bucket that I let sink to around 15 metres.  I was cubing for about 15 minutes when the Dolphin fish first approached the boat.  It had a go at my mate's lure but no hook up.  It then saw the bonito cubes and went for them.  It ate 1 then 2 then 3.  I had my 40 dollar bait rod in the rod holder with some line out and a black magic hook drifting with some bonito on it.  I winded it in a little so that the dolphin could see it and it did.  1 second later I was hooked up!

I left it in the water to see if there were any others but there was only this one.

I was quite surprised when it showed up as things were really slow that day.  But I was happy that my technique was able to lure a dolphin towards the boat and that I got it onboard.  It happened so quickly and i'm happy that it was caught on film.  

Enjoy the video and leave me some comments,

Cheers & tight lines!

Blitzcast Fishing NC