Mahi-mahi: Our Top 3 Favorite Fishing Techniques for Catching Them

Mahi-mahi, dorado, dolphin-fish. Abundant, aggressive, beautiful and tasty. Very underrated, yet is one of our favorites to catch!

They school up in massive numbers, they put on awesome acrobatic shows, they take an amazing photo, taste wonderful, and are great on light tackle. Today, I’ll share my accumulated experience, tips, and techniques for catching these prized table fish.

Sight Casting

Brooke Frecklington with a solid mahi-mahi!

Let’s get straight into it with one of my favorite ways to catch them. Stick baiting for them on pe4 tackle. This is by far the most fun technique to catch mahi-mahi, especially when you hook up to a big bull. We are quite lucky here in Vanuatu as we have numerous FADS that are fishable in almost all weather conditions. Usually, when we get to the FAD there are a few obvious signs that there is some mahi-mahi around.

  1. Schools of flying fish coming out of the water.
  2. Birds moving quickly, diving and feeding but you’re not seeing any signs of yellowfin or skipjack.
  3. You see the bloody blue majestic bastards doing the greyhound out of the swell or their dorsal fins just out of the water.

Once you know that there are a few around we will generally just cruise around at 3-5 knots with two people on the bow ready to send their stick baits out to where fish are spotted. My favorite is the Nomad Riptide 155mm floating ghost shad color with 4/0 BKK inline singles rigged at the belly and rear.

Nomad Design Riptide Stick Bait

  • The Riptide body shape is highly effective on all predatory species from far offshore to freshwater applications. The Riptide family is the ultimate range of casting stickbaits covering nearly every size and application of floating, sinking, fast sinking and walk the dog actions required for just about every predatory species.
  • The floating versions have the perfect balance to achieve that strike inducing ‘S’ shaped swimming motion. With a long sweep of the rod tip the head ducks under with a splash, with the water flowing over the lure’s body a seductive body roll and ‘S’ wave action is imparted sub-surface.

Mahi-mahi are quite easy to see from the bow. Bright neon blue fish streaking through the water with their dorsal sticking out is a sight not soon forgotten. Fling a stick bait in front of them and you will know within one meter of the retrieve if he is interested or not.

Once you get its attention, it is crucial to mix up your retrieve until you get hit. One minute they’ll go crazy for the steady zig-zag swimming action then will want an erratic fast surface skipping burn the next.

Teasing

Glen Sawyer’s awesome bull mahi-mahi!

Teasing mahi-mahi can be a load of fun as well! I like to cut a few strip baits from the back half of a skipjack and slip an 11/0 BKK inline single through its nose and send it out on the rigger about 20 meters back.

A steady 2.5-3 knots is the go when teasing them to come in close. the reason for the hook in the teaser is that every now and then you will get a hungry blue marlin come up and have a nibble.

 I always run two lines when teasing for mahi-mahi. One with a strip bait 15-20m back from the teaser and one right next to the teaser. The rig for the strip bait can be done a couple of ways. If you are looking to release the fish after a photo, go for a circle hook. If it’s to eat, I highly recommend a 4/0 to 6/0 J hook.

Now when the mahi-mahi does take the bait, let it run for a good 7-10 seconds before closing the bail arm or pushing the drag lever to ‘strike’ on your conventional reel (spin gear is a hell of a lot more fun).

Try to fight the urge to set the hook by rearing back on the rod. Steady pressure when you set the drag or when you close the bail arm is best. When he feels the pressure, 9 out of10 times they will jump out of the water and perform aerial acrobatics. After the jumps and spins and you still have erratic pressure at the end of your line, you know you got him on.

Chumming or Burley

Author Jed Hokins’ personal best mahi-mahi!

Possibly one of the most effective techniques to get a fish onto the end of your line, chumming or running a burley trail will get mahi-mahi and everything else fired up for a feed.

Baitfish like skipjack or bonito is ideal for this technique as it is more oily and will leave a thicker blood and scent trail. The trick here is you don’t want to throw over big cubes of skipjack. It’s best if you mince the meat up to make a nice trail of oil and blood. Once a nice trail of burley permeates the water around you, send out two or three lines with strip baits on them. Keep the bail arms of your spinning reels open and just wait for the majestic blue bastards to come along. Again, once mahi-mahi takes the bait, allow 7 – 10 seconds before you flip the bail over. Apply solid and steady pressure and enjoy the show.

Last Cast

Mahi-mahi are so underrated as a sport fish. As I’ve mentioned earlier, they are extremely fun to catch, take a great photo, provide us with awesome aerial acrobatics and taste so good. What’s not to love?

If you are as lucky as we are here in Vanuatu, where we have a healthy population of mahi-mahi, I highly suggest that you spend more time chasing them and learning more about their behavior and how to catch them consistently.

Not only will you be able to take home fresh and tasty fish for the family, you’ll also develop and improve your fish sighting, fish fighting and fish landing skills ten-fold!

What’s your favorite way to catch mahi-mahi? We’d love to know how you fish for them!

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