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Mahi- mahi is dolfin..not Dolphin !

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STINKYDIVER42

New Member
Mar 24, 2008
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Would someone please back me on this as my girlfriend believes everytime she see's dolfin "spearing dolfin" thinks it's the mammal dolphin ! She is as smart as a whip but headstrong when she believes she's correct. She is a vegetarian and animal lover who doesn't preach and knows I hunt/fish etc. but makes a stink when she hears of dolfin spearing....lol

Hungry for Mahi mahi in new jersey....

Tom
 
^----- Wrd.....Its not Flipper, take it from me I would know just look at my user name haha
 
The spelling is the same where the word is used interchangeably. You just have to realize that on the east coast of the US, if they say they caught or shot dolphin, they are referring to the fish. On the west coast we resolve it by calling the fish dorado, and of course in Hawaii they call it Mahi-Mahi.

My father was a fishing guide in Florida, and he resolved it by calling the mammal a porpoise and the fish a dolphin. I did the same thing before moving to the west coast.
 
I love mahi mahi, simply delicious! I always wanted to shoot one but I never really tried bluewater hunting before. How deep do you need to be able to dive if you want to go do some bluewater hunting? My friends and I are planning to charter a boat and go out to the buoys but all of us have no experience on hunting in the deep ocean. We have all the gears needed, ie floatlines and huge floats. Any suggestions? thanks.
 
I just saw some pictures of Mahi-Mahi. How would one confuse that with a dolphin?
 
sanso said:
I just saw some pictures of Mahi-Mahi. How would one confuse that with a dolphin?
Click to expand...

that round forehead is the only similarity as far as I can see, that's where, probably, the definition comes from I guess (just guessing: over here we call it Lampuga which means nothing else but...Mahi Mahi. Simple as can be ).
 


Being able to dive 15 feet would be nice, but not essential. They are generally not hard to shoot when you first get in the water on a buoy or other floating object such as a kelp paddie on the west coast or sargasso weed on the east coast. The school is likely to come right by you. After a couple are shot, they may keep their distance.
 
sanso said:
I just saw some pictures of Mahi-Mahi. How would one confuse that with a dolphin?
Click to expand...

I don't think its a matter of confusing one with a dolphin when seen. Its a matter of people thinking that you are referring to the mammal when you say you caught or speared some of the fish.
 
Went through this while living in Chicago. If you are daft enough to call a fish a dolphin then you deserve all the confusion and flak that is bound to ensue. You wicked dolphin slayers
 
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I don't think its really daft to call a fish a dolphin if you live on the east coast of the US where everyone calls that fish by that name.

In California we call them by their Spanish name, dorado.

In Hawaii they use the Hawaiian name, Mahi Mahi.

When I lived in North Carolina, I called them what North Carolinians called them, dolphin. You have to speak the local language if you want to be understood.
 
Well good luck with that then
 
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O.K. Bill,...
Now you really messed me up as I thought dorado was a south american bass !?...lol (grilling fresh brook trout as I write).

Tom
 
STINKYDIVER42 said:
O.K. Bill,...
Now you really messed me up as I thought dorado was a south american bass !?...lol
Click to expand...

And it probably is. That's the problem with common names rather than scientific names.

On the US West Coast we have a fish we call sheephead, and that confuses the hell out of people from the Atlantic and Gulf coasts where there is an entirely different fish called sheepshead.

The fish that we call yellowtail on the West Coast is called kingfish in New Zealand, and that really confuses guys from the Atlantic and Gulf coasts where kingfish means a king mackerel.

In Australia, the name jewfish is used for something that looks just like our West Coast white sea bass, but in the Atlantic and Gulf that name is applied to a giant species of grouper that is also now known by the more politically correct name of Goliath grouper. Of course when I was a teenager in Florida and was shooting them, there was an effort by newspaper outdoor writers to change the name to great grouper, but I guess that never caught on as well as Goliath grouper seems to have lately.

Short of all of us starting to speak Latin, I guess all we can do is go with the preferred local names.
 
Reactions: Mr. X
You're 100% correct Bill,

Got into it with my friend Mike Shea in clearwater Florida when I pulled up a zebra looking fish he called a sheephead and I proclaimed he was wrong. A sheephead to me was a white giant bluegill looking carp.....lol

p.s. the politically correct jewfish/goliath grouper thing is still messing people up !

Tom
 
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