Venice Offshore Tuna Fishing
May 6th
Venice Tuna Fishing and Offshore Blue Water Fishing is on Fire in Venice !! What? Wait a minute I heard fishing had been closed in Venice Louisiana. NOPE, nothing could be farther from the truth. But the oil spill is another Katrina, I heard the oil is worse than the Valdez. I heard….I heard…..I heard….
Well let me tell you from ground Zero it is not gloom and doom, the fish don't glow in the dark and we are not wiping oil off them before we put 'em on ice.
So, can I go on?
This fishing trip had been coordinated by Eric Newman of Blue Runner Foods and more specifically the absolute best Blue Runner Beans on the planet earth. Eric had assembled a crew for mass destruction. On the boat were myself, Eric Newman, Captain Will Wall, Captain Steve Thomas and the Louisiana Sportsman TV crew.
Captain William Wall is my longest time friend and my homie for more than 20 years. He's my brother from another mother, Will and I have been roommates, we've done things that set records together but mostly we've evaded the law and capture !! When we are together, you can bet something is happening.
Eric Newman is a sales rep for the Louisiana based Blue Runner Foods group and he has the triple engine, bad a$$ wrapped Triton that will take us to the killing grounds. Eric is an avid offshore fisherman and he understands the bad press Venice has been getting. So on this day he has set up the team of death for a dream TV show on his sled.
After Eric prepares an epic meal of Shrimp and Grits, he and I start working on final tackle preparations. We spool up and top shot the brand new out of the box shiny, blinging Okuma gear that will be tested tomorrow. Each one gets the finishing touches of Frenzy Flourocarbon and Frenzy circle hooks… Each Okuma popper rod is finished with a uni/uni knot to about 1ft' Flourocarbon leader and a Frenzy Angry popper. And the last rigs in our arsenal are the small but strong Okuma reels and jigging rods finished in the same way but using the Frenzy Angry Jigs. OH< and one last statement when rigging the big 50 wides that will play a part later in this story was and I Quote from Eric Newman: "Do you have a drag tester so we can properly set the drags?"….and answer from me as I swig my Miller Lite "don't worry about that, just give 'em a pull then clik it 4 more times"….
Thursday morning arrives and we roll out. Note in the pictures how calm the gulf was for this day of killing. We rolled to our spot almost **70** miles offshore and we were fishing at 7:30AM. We made bait on one rig and had to move about 15 miles to the rig that held the fish. Tuna lines went in the water with fresh live bait at 8:02.25 sec. First fish 8:02.50sec. OH, and second fish came at some point in the minute of 8:03 !! The Yellow Fin Tuna were there and they were hungry. The fish were jumping all around the boat, what an areal display we watched.
So, after our near limit of Yellow Fin Tuna Captain Steve Thomas, director of the Cajun Canyon Billfish Classic said this water looked perfect for holding some Big Blue Marlin. On that command we switched gears and put out a Billfish spread that would produce more Yellow Fin tuna to round out our limit and YES a nice 300 ish pound Blue Marlin strike. Our fight was short lived due to a broken line but never the less we had the prefect day…(UM< Broken line? 50Wide? Drag Tester?) ooooppppssss…Sorry for the quick but decisive Lite Beer advice …. WE turned the Blue Runner Triton North and put the Verados to a RPM that only the Kingfish people would run, in short order we were inside South Pass and screaming past the light house near 57MPH. This show will be aired on Thursday night on Coxnet in Louisiana. www.LouisianaSportsman.com
www.CajunOdysea.com
Captain Mike Gray
