You'd be hard pressed to invent an offshore gamefish as accommodating as the dolphin. Good old Coryphaena hippurus can be found in every tropical and temperate corner of the ocean, is relatively easy to locate and hook, puts up an electrifying, high jumping fight in neon colors, and is as tasty on a grill as it is beautiful when released.

Even better, dolphin are prolific breeders and fast growers, allowing sport and commercial hook-and-line fishermen to sustain relatively high catch efforts without fear of overfishing the species.

You probably knew that, and most likely you know a lot of other things about dolphin too. Secret baits? Don't need them, since dolphin will often hit just about any well-presented bait or lure passed in front of them. Secret locations? Not likely when they can be found under almost any floating plank or weedline.

But small tricks can mean almost as much as big secrets when it comes to fishing success. Dolphin aren't found just around weedlines. When trolling, don't neglect rips, bait pods and deep structure. Apparently, they do orient to structure much more than we thought. To draw fish in an area without weedlines or to bring dolphin out from under floating weeds or debris, try a "noisy" lure or a swimming ballyhoo. When dolphin are focused on feeding, they won't clue into your baits unless you can generate some commotion to get them out of the weeds. There are times when dolphin will chase bait in open water a half mile from a weedline and never approach the weedline. There are also times when dolphin will not congregate under boards or other floating debris.

There's a simple explanation for the dolphins' changing habits. Dolphin go after the most abundant food source available. When flying fish or other baits are in open water and in short supply in weeds or debris, the fish will follow the food.

In addition to the usual rips, bait pods and floating debris, dolphin feeding patterns include hunting at night during the full moon, feeding deeper in the water column when surface temperatures drop and feeding under birds.

Big baits catch big fish more often than not. Schoolies from 4 to 8 pounds won't often take a bait larger than a 8-inch ballyhoo or a 1-ounce feather, so if you want to exclude the small fish and target the big ones, move to larger lures or horse ballyhoo. Match your tackle to the game. Dolphin on fly or ultralight is an exciting experience to challenge any angler.

If we see small ones, we'll stop and break out the spinning gear and cast small plastic squids or maybe a feather jig, hoping to spot the shadow of a bigger fish down deep. If we see something, we'll start chumming with chunk bait to keep the school together and big fish around. The chum will help keep the school coming to the surface and occupied, allowing you to target the big guys 15 feet down. But you may have to keep switching baits to get them to bite.

A whole ballyhoo (without the head and tail) rigged on a long shank hook with a half-ounce sinker. It also works well when threaded onto a weighted half-ounce feather jig. Plastic squid and a whole frozen squid trimmed of its tentacles on a weighted jig also should be part of your arsenal if the fish turn off. The thing about the big ones is they won't stay around long, so you need to be accurate with your casts, because if they get bored and peel off, a lot of times they'll take the rest of the school with them.

There's plenty of dolphin here in the upper Gulf.