I took a couple of well deserved vacation days on Monday and Tuesday. Was supposed to go flats fishing and camping with Junior (who owns one of my local watering holes, Rattlesnake Jake's) down at 10,000 islands at the SW tip of the Florida peninsula. Unfortunately, his Grandmother died so we could not go. My sympathy to Junior and his family. I ended up going fishing on Tuesday with my buddy Shorty. Of course Shorty is anything but short/small (picture in the gallery). We went trolling. He has a nice fishing boat. Tried along the reef and then out to about 800'. Maybe five miles off shore. Was a beautiful day. Anyway, we were fishing along a weed line (an area of floating seaweed and/or debris that holds baitfish and consequently the big fish that feed on them) about an hour into the trip. We were still a little mellow/tired and had slowed to remove some weed hooked on one of the rigs we had out. Suddenly, at the most inopportune time, Shorty says, "crap, here come the dolphins". Sure enough, a school of small dolphin fish, "schoolies", come ripping toward our lines. For those of you who don't know, dolphin fish are mahi mahi, not Flipper (pictures in gallery). Interesting pelagic species and delicious. They come fast, jumping out of the water. They reminded me of land mammals, maybe like gazelles, leaping in tall grass so you only see them on their leap otherwise you don't know where they are or maybe like the velocaraptors hunting in Jurassic Park. You just see them when they appear above the water then they disappear again. Eating machines. Anyway, they attacked all of our lines (which were not being trolled under maximum conditions as previously noted) except the one we were pulling weed from and we were caught totally off guard. They hit the baits too far back we could not respond fast enough to hook any. Those were the last fish we saw all day. Not another strike at all. I guess that's why they call it fishing and not catching. Oh well, a lousy day of fishing is better than a great day of work any time!