Species guide · Acrobatic blue-water FAD-loving summer pelagic

Mahi Mahi fishing guide.

Also known as Dolphinfish, Dorado, Dollies. Bait, technique, tide windows, and where the bite is on right now.

Where the Mahi Mahi bite is on right now

Hero spots in our coverage where Mahi Mahi is in season for May. Click through for the live forecast.

Out of season across our covered spots in May. Check back in September.

Best bait

Best lures

Technique

In Australia, fish FADs (Fish Aggregating Devices — government-deployed offshore in NSW/QLD/WA — find them on coordinates published by state fisheries) by pulling up 20–30 m off, casting plastics or stickbaits, and burley with chopped pilchard. Once one fish is hooked, leave it in the water — the school will follow, and you can sight-cast to the rest. Floating debris, weed lines and current edges hold fish offshore too — a single floating palm frond can hold dozens.

Tide windows that matter

Tide is largely irrelevant for mahi — they're a blue-water pelagic over deep water. What matters is current edges (the colour change between two water masses), water temp 22°C+, and floating structure. The exception: where current pushes through a FAD or buoy, the windward / down-current side is where the fish stack up.

Moon & solunar

Moon phase has minimal documented effect on mahi. Solunar major and minor windows align with feeding bursts but the bigger driver is water temp and finding the fish. Mahi often feed actively all day in summer once located. Cloudy days arguably fish better than bright high-sun days.

Regulations

NSW: no minimum size, bag of 10. QLD: no minimum, bag of 10. US (federal Atlantic / Gulf): 20" fork length, 10 per person Atlantic / no FL state limit Gulf — verify NOAA Highly Migratory Species rules. Mahi are short-lived (4 years max) and fast-growing — bag limits are generous for that reason.

What ~1.7K real catches show

From our training corpus of ~1.1M angler-logged catches across 14 regions. Last refreshed 2026-05-14.

Top fishing methods

1 Trolling 54%
2 Casting 18%
3 Free line 13%
4 Sea angling 5%
5 Jig fishing 3%

Peak month

JAN
FEB
MAR
APR
MAY
JUN
JUL
AUG
SEP
OCT
NOV
DEC

Peak hour of day

12a
3a
6a
9a
12p
3p
6p
9p

Top water bodies

Conditions when caught (median & middle-50%)

Water temp
27.7°C
middle 50%: 24.9–29.9°C
Wind
3.3 m/s
middle 50%: 2.2–4.7 m/s
Swell
0.5 m
middle 50%: 0.3–0.7 m
Pressure
1016.3 hPa
middle 50%: 1013.7–1018.6 hPa
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