Dorado - Dolphin

Hi Uwe
They're a magnificent challenge on light or fly tackle. Unfortunately so many are hooked whilst trolling for Marlin with big lures.

The current World All Tackle record came from the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and weighed 87lbs. An absolute monster! And the biggest caught on fly - a 58 pounder - came from Tropic Star Lodge in Panama. That was on a 12lb tippet.

Some strikes are blind strikes. But most come from around floating structure - weed lines, floating trees or even just debris in the water. In fact anything that holds a collection of small fish or pelagic crabs - they tend to find protection from it.

So it's always worth trolling around such structure. And when the strike comes it's usually one of the more agressive males that hooks up first. As you play it in though often you'll see the rest of the shoal swimming with it - looking for food. If that's the case leave the hooked one in the water and try to catch the others freelining small pieces of bait. Often you can hook several before they become wary and swim away.

Back to the structure though. Even if you don't get a hook-up immediately, and the Dorado will sometimes range 2 or 300' away from the structure, cut the engines and look into the water. Often they will be swimming deep and you can spot flashes of fish in the water. They can occasionally be tempted up either by chunking, or fishing a small livebait close to the structure.

Looking at our Club line class records most, up to 60lbs, have come from the Pacific - Mexico, Panama and Ecuador. Although the biggest, 70-08lbs, actually came from Gran Canaries in the Canaries.

I understand that Dorado grow extremely quickly and a really big fish may only be 4 or 5 years old. In fact it appears that that represents their normal life span.

Back to how to catch them though. They're much more fun on light gear and I prefer casting free-lined livebaits on spin gear. But they're also much more fun on a 12 weight fly rod!
Dave

Hi Uwe
When you refered to the 'Middle Sea' I presume you mean the Mediterranean between Europe and Africa, the Mittelmeer. Is that correct?

I'm afraid I have very little experience of fishing in the Mediterranean. Our members only tend to fish there for the Bluefin Tuna from Italy and Croatia. But Dorado will show up throughout the Mediterranean in deep water. In the main though they're quite small. Could I perhaps suggest you try posting to the forums on this fly fishing web site - the moderator extremely helpful, and has much more experience of the Mediterranean than I.
Dave