Venice Yellowfin Tuna Fishing:
October is the best month in Venice Louisiana, or at least this is the sweetest October I can ever remember! I'm bad about typing reports but I will sum up two weeks of fishing right here, right now.
On the maiden fishing voyage of my new FREEMAN 33' I took a great friend Sean Newman and headed over to Grand isle from Venice via the gulf to pick up another friend and Eric Newman for a weekend of fishing. On the way Sean and I caught a limit of Cobia in the West Delta, then once we picked Eric up we stopped and got his limit on the way back to Venice.
The next day was the first "Real" day of fishing offshore and we were stoked, greeted by nice calm seas and a beautiful sunrise that could only be from one God we rocked on at 60+ miles per hour to the shrimp boats. Once at the shrimpers we knew it was time for the slayin to begin. The fish had no pressure for almost 6 months and there were more than 3 dozen shrimpers laying trawl trash all over the surface of the West Delta. We got the bait we needed and tossed a few pieces into the water only to watch huge, big shouldered Yellowfin Tuna muscle the smaller Bonita and Blackfin out of the way. We tossed a couple baits into the water with hidden hooks and it was on. The reels began to scream and the anglers smiled and high fived as we hand fed huge fish in beautiful blue water. Final tally for the day was 5 Yellowfin Tuna, One nice Warsaw and a Red Snapper. Jimmy from Boat Stuf had the #11 record in the Gulf of Mexico @ 221.4 LBS, congratulations Jimmy on a world class Yellowfin Tuna.
Day two and same thing.
Day three and same thing.
Took a few days off to come home and re-group. It was time to up-size the tackle, add new wind on's provided by Basil @ B.H.P. Tackle and get ready to go after them again. The word was out and the bookings were coming in. The couple days off gave me just the right amount of time to fine tune my tackle and head after them again. This time things had changed a little and the shrimp boats were in dirty water. Some of the big 'uns were caught but I did not duplicate the previous trips. No one can argue with limits of snapper, 15+ Jumbo size Black fin and wahoo thrown in for good taste. We did get a Yellowfin each day but the size was smaller. The seas were still calm, the temperature wonderful and friendship second to none.
On one of the days I had a 6 year old boy and his brother that was 12, both caught fish and both created memories on my boat. The 6 year old baited his hook, threw it in the water, hooked a 20+ LB Blackfin and reeled it in the whole way with zero help. Way to go Logan! This day was great and there are two kids that have "Fish-Tales" to last a long, long time. We saw a huge Mako this day and caught a hammerhead as well as plenty other giant blacktips.
So, now my days are running together and I cant recall one trip from the other, but they were all great and even what I would consider world class. A few of the highlights included: A stud Yellowfin hooked on an 80wide with 130lb straight and a 20 ought circle hook. He fought like hell for about 15 minutes making wild long runs then dig in and circle followed by another stellar run, we were beginning to wonder, but we knew it was a stud Yellowfin Tuna because we saw the fish eat. So, after one long run it simply started coming into the boat, we just knew it had been eaten by the Mako but upon inspection the fish was intact and coming to the boat like a bass being skied across the surface, the angler kept tension on the fish and reeled a 165LB Yellowfin Tuna across the surface to the boat only to realize the 20 ought circle hook had in fact penetrated the fish somewhere down it's throat to cause it to die. Yep, died dead, never moved, never flopped, never flinched when the point was driven home DEAD !!
One stud size Yellowfin Tuna got greedy and ate two baits, he had a circle hook in each side of his face, each angler was equipped on 50wides and, well, let's just say that Tuna never had a chance and the fight lasted all of 10 minutes! Of all the cool sights I will never get over a stud yellow waiting in linger below the boat and when John Buck threw a 5" live hard tail the fish hit the small bait on top of the water about 6' from the boat and completely smoked a 30 wide, there is no doubt he would have spooled us if it had not been for the Jerry Brown line underneath the mono top shot.
Each day we fished we were no farther than 40miles from Venice Marina and in the new FREEMAN we were on the fish shortly after sunrise. The speed 60+ allows for longer fishing time and less commute. Check out my site for pictures, www.cajunodysea.com
Best-
Captain Mike Gray
www.CajunOdysea.com
