We finished up another commercial shark trip yesteday, the last one of this short July opening for the F/V Margaritas.  We had one more night we could have set gear but we already had very close to the trip quota on board so we called it a trip and headed in about 2PM from a spot just north of the Swanson-Madison reserve site.  As we started to run to the east my crew noticed a large bull dolphin following the boat and began trolling a weighted spoon trying to entice it into a bite.   It made a few runs at the spoon but always veered off just before striking it.  They dropped a few small pieces of shark meat in the water and the dolphin nosed the first two and then ate the next three.  They then baited a hook with a chunk of shark meat, tied it off to a spinning rod and trolled it behind the boat and soon hooked a beauty of a bull dolphin, all 25 or so pounds of it.  After boating about 8,000 lbs (4,000 lbs dressed weight) of sharks in three days the guy with the rod in his hand wasn't expecting much of a challenge from the dolphin.  He couldn't have been more wrong.  He had quite a fight on his hands, jumping the fish about five times and fighting it for about fifteen minutes before bringing it to the boat.  A fun end to the trip.

Then we had quite a treat on the way in.  We arrived at Government Cut, St. George Island right at sunset.  The sun was setting behind a big thunderhead over the bay and it was all quite beautiful.  The tide was running out hard and, as we passed the buoys off the cut, we noted a large number of pelicans working what was evidently a large school of baitfish right at the cut.  When we got right up to the mouth of the rocks we were suddenly surrounded by diving pelicans, running and scrambling baitfish and...big tarpon.  That's right, what looked like hundreds of big tarpon were working the bait school, breaking clear of the water and rolling all around the boat.  It was quite a sight.  I regret that I didn't have a camera along and will have to content myself with telling the tale.

The cut, by the way, looks totally different than it did before Hurricane Dennis paid us a visit.  The rocks are no longer butted up to the sand on either side, the east side has gained a ton of beach-front (as some pictures in our Local Waters forum show) and the west side has lost a huge amount of the spoil bank that was piled up there.  It is still a spectacularly beautiful spot and I'm sure the fishing is (and will be) as good or better than ever but it certainly does look different.

http://www.wefings.com/boards/index.php?topic=73.0

So, grab your boat, grab someone else's boat, grab an invite to go along on another boat, charter one of our local guides, or just call Marc at Wefing's and beg him to take you out... but one way or another, get on out there and catch some of the beautiful fishing we have in this area.