This is a report written by Kai Dominick who fished with me on the 27th with family and friends. The goal was to put a few tuna in the box along with a sword. I couldn't make the tuna bite happen with all of the cudas and wahoo cutoffs. But I was able to make the swords bite. I have found a new bait for mako shark and that is a Yamaha F150 we had a mako do it's best to chew both lower units off. Enough from me here is the report and pictures will follow later today.
Capt. Mike
Finally able to sit down and write a report on our tuna/sword trip from last Wednesday out of Venice. Dad flew in from Ohio for a week of fishing out of Freeport and Venice to celebrate his upcoming 68th birthday. Unfortunately, the weather shut us down out of Freeport, but the forecast for Venice looked good, so Dad, Pubguy, and I headed over to Venice for a 13:00 Wednesday departure with Capt. Mike Ellis of Relentless Sport Fishing. Capt Mike had the boat ready to go on time and we pushed off right on schedule, hoping to box some yellow fins prior to sunset.
As we hit the river, the prospects looked good – one of the other captains was already back up the river, his day trip having limited out on YFT in a couple of hours. They gave us their left over live bait and told us where they had been. Needless to say, we were getting excited, with Pubguy and I hoping to be fighting our first tunas soon.
As we reached the first rig, Dad won the draw and was up first. 2 baits in the water, and couple of minutes later, the reel is screaming. Capt. Mike says ‘cuda as Dad fights, but as the fish comes past the boat, we see a WAHOO. Brief panic ensues as we reach for the gaff and try to bring the fish into range, but he cuts the line and escapes. Another cut off a few minutes later, and we moved on.
The rest of the afternoon was, to say the least, slow. We made bait, ran to numerous rigs, but caught nothing but cudas, all released unharmed. As sunset approached, we moved to Capt Mike's swordfish spot and got set up for our drifts -he said we had a good shot of a strike right at sunset. Sure enough, within about 15 minutes we had a good strike on 1 of our drift lines, but no hook up. Within 30 minute of resetting, we had another strike, and the game was on. Dad harnessed up and started cranking. The fish came right up to the boat after the hook up, then took off. 17 minutes later, we sunk a harpoon in the sword and Dad has his first sword in the boat. 55" lower jaw to tail. The skunk was off…
After another missed strike, our next hookup is at 23:30. Pubguy is up, and has the fish boat side within 10 minutes. Again this fish came right to the boat before sounding and putting up his fight. This one was about 44", so he was released to grow up a little more…
Things dragged for the early hours of the morning. As the sky started to lighten in the east, I figured I wasn't going to get my sword, but Capt Mike said that we had a good shot of another strike at first light. I was, shall we say more than a skeptical. Sunrise came, and we were just about the start pulling in the lines when we had another strike. I'm harnessed up and sure, enough, the fish is coming straight to the boat. We get all the gear off the line and I'm ready for him to head deep, when I see a huge gash in the fish's left side. In my sleep deprived condition it didn't dawn on me what was going on for a few seconds – I snapped to right about the time the 8' Mako took another chunk off my sword at boat side. We shuffle quick, setting out other rods with a sqid and a chuck of sword with a big mullet, but the Mako would only play with them. He spent maybe 15 minutes with us, mauling 1 of the lower units, nosing our baits, but we couldn't get him to take a bait. As mad as I was about the loss of my sword, I have to admit that that was a way cool scene to experience…
The rest of the morning Capt. Mike tried to put us on the Tuna. Dad was up for our first knock down, a barely keeper YFT. Pubguy then got his first tuna, a nice size BFT. I'm still looking for my first tuna… We were back to the dock in Venice around 11:00.
All in all, a great trip. I expected to have an easy time loading up on YFT, and thought we'd be lucky to get 1 sword strike. Although a little disappointed on our tuna haul, I'm stoked to have gone 3 for 5 on the swords. Here's a few pics…
-Kai