DATE: Thursday, May 29, 1997                TAG: 9705290633

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C8   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BOB HUTCHINSON

                                            LENGTH:   39 lines

A WEEKLY GUIDE TO THE REGION'S HOT SPOTS

Dolphin - the fish, not the mammal - is arguably the most beautiful gamefish. It is also a great fighter, showering the ocean with acrobatic leaps.

If that's not enough, the fish also makes great dinner fare. You see it on the menus of many upscale restaurants as ``maui-maui,'' its Hawaiian name.

But what a lot of folks don't know about this rainbow-hued fish, dominated by shades of yellow, is that it is one of the few species in which males and females are easily distinguishable. Although similarly colored, the female has a sleek, almost-pointed head, while the male's is blunt, reminiscent of J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime czar of the FBI.

Dolphin are also gregarious. They like to school near the surface while hiding under anything that will belie their coloration. And that makes them suckers for anglers' offerings.

Find a bed of Sargasso grass or almost anything floating around the edge of the Gulf Stream and it's likely to have dolphin under it.

A trick employed by legions of anglers, especially charter skippers, is to keep a live ``bait'' dolphin in the water when you encounter a school. If you catch a dolphin and can see others swimming about, the fish will stay in the area as long as you keep that hooked fish in the water. This is when you can break out some type of cut-up bait and chum with it to keep the fish around.

The point of all of this? Dolphin have been making a tremendous showing off Hatteras and southeast of Oregon Inlet.

``It's as good as it ever gets,'' says Lorris Tolson of Teach's Lair Marina at Hatteras.

Now, if only we could get the weather to settle down and remain settled. The spring has been so windy that charter and private boats are spending more days at the dock than at sea. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu