Garfish as bait for dolphin fish?

[fin]

I have seen and heard alot about garfish being utilised as bait, whether as an artificial lure or live bait, however i have never heard the sucess rate of so.

We all know that little feathers or artificial squids catch the famed dolphin fish (known in maltese as 'Lampuki') in abundance but how about these garfish.

They seem to be hitting our tackle shops but yet i still have to hear about a completely successful story.

Has anyone got any feedback.

YOURS FIN

[Fishmagician]

Dolphin fish, or mahi mahi, as they are called in Hawaii, are real opportunist. They are one of the fastest growing fish in the sea, and have a short life span. While I have not used what your referring to as gar fish for bait,,,I've caught them on everthing you can think of even spreader bars. They love mackerel, and squid (dead or alive). I let them take either bait and run with it for a three or five count before I close the spool and begin the hook up. Now if you gar fish, are smaller sizes between 5-9 inches,,,I don't know why they wouldn't take them. The first thing I want to do is identify exactly what your calling a dolphin fish.

Over here I found that'll school up and follow a chum line of chunk real well. That's when I put out a couple of fly lined bait in the chum slick. If you have a photo of your "gar fish" I'd love to see it posted here.

Capt. Mike Fisher

[fin]

Hey mike,

attached find a pic of what garfish look like. They normally grow to normally no more than 12 inches but seem to always to hang around shoals of dolphin fish. Yes they are what you call mahi mahi. Same species. However around FADs we always seem to find these garfish around these fads which dolphin fish seem to hunt for.

YOURS FIN

[skip]

Mike,

We rarely see our Lampuki (Mahi Mahi, Dolphin Fish) grow to the size you guys get over there. They do exist in the 12-15kg range but most commercial fisherman get them towards the end of the year around 50 miles out. The average size is more like 2-3 kgs most probably because hundreds of small boats go out for them during the season trolling hand lines with feathers.

I think I spoke with you a while back about possibly making a bait ball spreader bar with say 20 of these small feathers or something similar for use around our waters, only the large lampuki will go for 4 1/2 inch baits and as mentioned we don't normally see those.

I'm sure there woudl be interest in spreader bars with the small feathers. What do you think?

Skip

[Fishmagician]

Skip, small feather on the bars may work, I don't know if twenty would work, due only to their accumulated weight...I can play with that here. Colors for the Dorado, (spanish word for gold) are green, yellow combination, mackerel patterns, bright combinations. And for you?

[skip]

Mike, Red/White has worked very well for the smaller / medium sized ones here.

[fin]

Red and white for some reason around these waters does the job. Plus not forgetting a particular blue makerel rapala. For some reason this lure gacve many strikes on end.

FIN

[Fishmagician]

On those red and white lures taking your dorado, they're very opportunistic, and eat just about anything that comes their way. If your seeing a real preference for the red and white, it might indicate that they've been eating on the squid in your area.

Best regards,
Capt. Mike Fisher

[fin]

From what i can gather, squid is in abundance in malta as it seems to be nearly part of every fishes diet.

FIN

[Simon G]

Just one thing lapuki are well known to drive in shoals of garfish.
if you go down to  Blata tal Melh in bahrija they have already started fishing for lampuki