Dolphins, Dolphins, Dolphins Everywhere
I have seen this before, but never been right in the middle of Dolphins Feeding
up an estuary. You can hear the dolphins via the blowholes before you can see them usually. The same is true of manatee breathing in the silence of the mangrove estuaries. This was a pack of 12 to 14 dolphins with at least 5 or 6 being juveniles. It is hard to count as they are always in motion.

As they came steaming into our part of the estuary, it was obvious they were actively feeding on the rising tide from the noise we are hearing behind the mangrove islands. At kayak level, you are very close to the animals as they go about their business of feeding on the abundance of baitfish and fat mullet that are located in the estuary in the early fall.

The dolphins hunt in packs and the whole pod works together. You can see them herd the schools of baitfish into tighter and tighter balls until sometimes the baitfish literally leap from the water to escape the predators. They always seem so sweet and they are mindfull of kayakers almost in a reverence for the yak since it is kind of dolphin shaped and moves along without a motor. You realize they are not all that sweet when you see the blood in the water when they eat a big fat mullet or trout.

Here a couple of adults are herding baitfish into the mangroves. Notice they are working together and using the island to confuse the fish as they drive in for the attack.

All around us there are swishes and the sound of dolphins blowing air as they exert energy to chase lunch. These are powerful marine mammals and I would almost use the word marrauding to describe the pack mentality that happens when they hunt fish. It sure puts a damper on the fishing when they come cruising into the bay and everything less than 2 feet long that swims in the bay pays attention.

Here again, another pack is pushing large schools of menhaden or sardines (what fisherman collectively call white bait). After a long summer and a couple of spawns, we have bays that literally are full of these small 1 to 3 inch fish. Sardines and menhaden are an oily fish and the dolphins seem to be putting on as much weight as possible to get ready for a long winter.

Whole families are hunting together and the adults are trying to teach the juveniles to learn this skill and hunt with the pack.

Sometimes, the juvenile dolphins do not seem interested in the task at hand as they split from the pack and do loop de loops around the mangroves.

This young dolphin is finally getting the hang of it and wants everybody to know. He pops his head up about 15 or 20 times and shoots a fish up into the air on a pillow of water. He seems so proud that he is finally getting the hang of his fishing classes that he displays the catch again and again. My wife is yelling encouragement and clapping each time he comes up which the young dolphin seems to like.

As he repeats the behavior again and again and again, we get a few chances to get shot of this amazing interaction where the dolphin seems to be celebrating the sheer excitement of catching a fish.

From the level of the kayak, we are literally among this pod of dolphins that are going about their business like we are not even there. The activity is so crazy, I see my wife reaching for a life vest just in case one of the young dolphins gets rambunctious and overturns our boat. They always seem to know where we are and do flip turns a couple of times to stay away from the boat, even when pursuing prey but they go underneath a time or two and push a pretty good sized wave into the boat from dolphin wake.

The big bulls get pretty aggressive when chasing a big fat mullet. Note the blowhole mist above this dolphin as we works to catch fast swimming mullet.

A quick nod as if to say goodbye before heading off to a different part of the estuary. Not more than 10 feet from our kayak but we feel really special today with what we have just witnessed.