Chicago fisherman catches redfish, battles dolphin

August 27, 2020 2:22 pm By:

Todd from Chicago recently spent a 3/4 day on the water, hammering little to medium snook in Naples, on live threadfin herring. We then went fishing redfish in the mangroves around Marco Island. We used cut threadfin almost exclusively in the mangroves and flat out hammered some nice redfish, and several big snook that either cut us off, made the last glory run, or got nailed by nuisance dolphins. One of the two dolphins that set up shop by our boat, nailed the redfish shown on the bottom of the pic, and thought he was gonna head off with his treat unhindered as he slowly pulled drag out as he swam away. An idea suddenly popped in my exploding head and I had Todd flip the bail and free line the red, and I let the line flow freely through my hand for about 20 feet…as the thief started to leisurely surface for air and to adjust his plunder, I quickly gave the braided line a quick snatch, and it popped right out of the dolphins mouth.

Check out the redfish on the bottom that was attacked by the dolphin during the fight

We quickly hauled and reeled the poor fish across the surface and scooped it at the last second much to the chagrin of the thief who hit the landing net as we scooped up our prize. I think even with the chew marks, that red still tasted great to its rightful owner!

Fun sized little jewfish, (golaith grouper) are always an exciting bycatch when we are fishing in the mangroves.

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