{"id":395765,"date":"2026-09-10T11:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T11:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/395765\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T11:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T11:40:08","slug":"this-florida-angler-saw-dolphins-as-a-nuisance-now-theyre-his-hunting-buddies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/395765\/","title":{"rendered":"This Florida Angler Saw Dolphins as a Nuisance. Now They\u2019re His Hunting Buddies."},"content":{"rendered":"

The animal circles the boat, occasionally lifting its head above the water and whistling through its blowhole, as if trying to get Dymond’s attention. “Hi Crystal,” he says.<\/p>\n

A few moments later, another fin breaks the surface. \u201cThere\u2019s Halo,\u201d he says. Then another appears. By dark, six bottlenose dolphins have gathered around the boat. Dymond recognizes each one by the small nicks and notches on their dorsal fins: Crystal, Halo, Tix, Echo, Baja, Bonnie.<\/p>\n

With everyone accounted for, he flips on the lights mounted around the boat and shifts into gear. As the vessel glides forward, the dolphins fall into formation, cruising alongside it in water sometimes just a foot deep. \u201cThey\u2019re like border collies going to work,\u201d says Dymond. The boat lights illuminate schools of mullet, snook, redfish, sheepshead, stingrays, sea turtles, bonnethead sharks, alligators, and more.<\/p>\n

(These dolphins have orca \u2018friends.\u2019 They may have an ulterior motive<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The dolphins swim together as a pack looking for fish. They use the lights on Dymond’s boat to find fish and spook them out of their hiding places.<\/p>\n

One dolphin eyes a needlefish at the surface, then spins around to chase and snatch it before swallowing it in one gulp. \u201cThat\u2019s like their favorite fish,\u201d says Dymond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The animal circles the boat, occasionally lifting its head above the water and whistling through its blowhole, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[91240,157833,17353,28,30,29,157831,157832],"class_list":["post-395765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-bottlenose-dolphins","tag-bowfishing","tag-crystal-river","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-justin-dymond","tag-specialized-foraging-behavior"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}