Dolphin At A Glance Average Size: School fish range from a pound to 15, occasionally 20. Larger fish are loners or paired up as a bull (male) and cow (female). The biggest bulls commonly reach 50 pounds and rarely exceed 70. Largest cows reach 40 pounds. State Record: 77 pounds, 12 ounces. World Record: 87 pounds. Range: All offshore waters of Florida, the Bahamas and the Caribbean. Angling Methods: Trolling rigged natural baits or artificial lures with conventional or heavy spinning tackle, or casting to schooled fish under weedlines or floating objects with live baits, cutbait, jigs, streamer flies or poppers.

The dolphin is the wood duck of pelagic fishes, so spectacularly colorful that it seems impossible it could have evolved by accident. The back and head are iridescent, glowing neon blue and chartreuse green. The sides and belly are gold, sprinkled with bright blue spots. And, like some other pelagics, the fish has the ability to "light up" with shimmering waves of color across its body, almost as if its skin were embedded with moving lights.

In fact, biologists say the fish's color is the result not only of pigment, but of microscopic structures in the skin, which the fish can manipulate to change its color. The color changes could have evolved for spawning selection, or perhaps as a camouflage when approached by predators, as with many bottom creatures. In any case, the spectacular color in life leaves no doubt when a dolphin dies; the skin almost instantly turns an ugly, blotchy gray-silver or dull yellow.

Dolphin are found in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, anywhere that the water remains at 70 degrees or warmer throughout the winter. In U.S. waters they migrate seasonally, following bait northward along the Atlantic coast to Virginia and beyond in spring, back toward the Keys in winter, but good numbers remain in Florida waters throughout the summer as well.

The dolphin is unique among pelagic fishes in that the mature males have a distinctly different shape than the females; the forehead of an adult "bull" is high and blunt, while the "cow" has a more typical, streamlined forehead. (The males look just like the females until they approach adulthood.) There are no reports of the male using this head as a battering ram in mating battles, but it's pretty clearly a secondary sexual characteristic.

Dolphin reportedly can reach speeds up to 50 mph, and sometimes run down flyingfish in the air, though more commonly they race along just under the surface, watching a flyer and eating it the second it touches down. They also eat lots of squid, small bonito and other pelagic bait.

There's a second species of dolphin in Florida waters known as the pompano dolphin, Coryphaena equisetis. It's less elongated than the larger cousin, and never reaches sizes much over two feet long and weights of 5 pounds. If you get into a big school of "chicken" dolphin, they are probably pompano dolphin-some scientists believe they're more common than the "common" dolphin. One sure way to tell which species you have in hand is to check the anal fin. Common dolphin have a notch near the front, but pompano dolphin do not. For regulatory purposes, Florida considers them one species, with no separate bag limit. (The dolphin limit is 10 daily, with no minimum or maximum size.)

Dolphin grow very fast, reaching 10 pounds in three years. The Florida record is 76 pounds, 8 ounces for a fish taken out of Lake Worth Inlet, while the all-tackle mark is 87 pounds even, from the Exumasin the Bahamas.

Like cobia, dolphin are attracted to all sorts of floating objects, from the smallest to the largest. Weedlines have a natural attraction for them, but they seem particularly interested in the debris of civilization; pieces of wood, plastic sheets, barrels and wrecked docks have all been reported as dolphin attractors.

Little is known about dolphin mating or juvenile life, but they apparently spawn April to August. The larval fish live in the sargassum that provides the only cover in the open sea until they're big enough to run down prey in open water. The body shape is similar to adults, but the colors are gold/orange with black stripes, probably giving them a better chance of escaping predators as they hide in the sargassum. They're attracted to partyboat lights at night; if you want a miniature, take along a long-handled dipnet.

They're also called dorado, the golden fish, in Spanish, and mahi-mahi in Hawaii and in expensive restaurants. Whatever you call them, they're delicious on the table, and a delight on the hook.

(Thanks to scientists at Dauphin Island Sea Lab and the National Marine Fisheries Service for information included in this report.)

FS