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Venice Louisiana Fishing Reports
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Relentless Sportfishing Update
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I would like to inform all of my loyal clients and any new ones who would like to fish with me. That as of November 12th 2006 I have merged my charter service with the best and most respected charter operation in Venice, Reel Peace Charters. I can still be reached by phone at 504 715 6597 or through email from my site here for a charter. You can also book a charter with me by calling and booking through www.reelpeace.com. To fish with me all you have to do is just request me.
Capt. Mike |
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Sept. 27th Sword report
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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
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77" Swordfish and tuna report
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This is a post written by my clients after they got back from a overnighter with me on Saturday. It does have some tuna involved in it but it also has the largest sword I have put in the boat off of Venice so that is why I am putting it on here for you guys to read. The sword measured out at 77" and since the marina wasn't open I couldn't weigh it but I am guessing it would fall in the 240-250 range.
Capt. Mike
I had been trying to plan an overnight trip to Venice for almost a year. Katrina messed things up real bad, but as soon as I heard they had power and a clean bed I was setting up a trip. I called up Captain Mike Ellis, checked on some date, and talked with three of my best friends. Aug. 12 (last Sat) right after my summer semester seemed to fit everyone the best. BTW Capt. Mike and his wife are expecting a baby around Aug 20th.
Andy, Jamie and Myself, hit the road Friday afternoon planning on meeting up with Jim, Jamie’s father, around New Orleans. We got delayed in traffic and thunderstorms so we finally gave up on New Orleans and were headed straight to Venice. We got onto Hwy 23 and just after passing through Fourchon, I joked that there’s not much down here and that just may be the last gas station; well it was, until the end of the road. It was little nerve racking worried about gas and to make things worse we got pulled over about 10:00pm, the cop said we were doing 75 in a 55, but there was no way, the roads are so bumpy we could only go 55 in a 65. He was more just checking us out, and after Jamie said something about meeting his father for tuna fishing and we were off with no problems.
The next morning we woke up and cooked breakfast expecting to leave out about 1:00pm. I called C. Mike and offered some breakfast, being the only breakfast joint in town we had the Captain come over and started discussing the game plan. We could go east and get on some stupid-good tuna fishing, then go sword fishing at night, or we could go west and hit the rigs for tuna, try to catch tuna all night, but just in search of the unknown, because all the other guides have been going east. We could all see that Capt Mike wanted to go sword fishing pretty bad, and I felt if we struck out that he would work hard to put fish in the boat.
We got on the boat about 12:00 and left the dock shortly after. We made bait on open water schools of threadfin herring, then off of a mooring buoy that held tuna crack. The word on the radio was the fish were still there but the small yellowfin had moved in as well, and were killing allot of bait. Still on the way out to the Rig for tuna, we stopped on a nice weed line, to check for some dolphin, nothing home but some more small hardtails were caught. About a mile and a half off the rig captain yells "Marlin" and drops the boat off of plane. I rig a threadfin fast and get him into water, only to see about 12" of the marlin's bill out of the water and streak 40 yards in a second in a half. Unfortunately it was not towards our bait, but we gave him about 20 mins to find the bait, and then headed to the oil rig.
There was another boat at the rig, they were shooting a Tv show, and had the fish working hard for the camera. They were flying a kite w/balloon, and live chumming baits. Lets just say the tuna were putting on a show. Big fish boiling, and Small tuna 10 feet out of the water. We hooked up in about twenty minutes of bump trolling. And it was on, Jim was up on the rod first and handed it over to his son Jamie, who complained that all his dad did was let the tuna go as deep as possible, so Jamie had to work that much harder to get it up. (that's ok Jim would redeem himself)
This tuna was about 80 pounds. The Mike asked if it was his first tuna, then quickly smeared bloody on his face. He was so tired he didn't even care.
The next fish hit the rod my rod, an Avet 40/2 with 80 pound line. The fish got me past my 125 yards of mono and well into my braid, in about 30 seconds. After that I worked him almost straight up to the boat and Capt. stuck a gaff in him after about only 15 mins. That was pretty sweet.
Then we hooked up with something that never jumped but never went deep, it stayed out to the side, Andy was on the rod for about 35 mins. And then handed it to me, only 3 or 4 mins later, the fish thrashed it's head three time and broke off. Capt. Mike said it was most likely a Marlin with the way it fought out to the side the whole time and the way the line was scarred above the break. I hate breaking fish off, that sucked.
It was pretty slow for about an hour, and just as Mike is saying they might have turned off for the night, the other side of the rig had a few fish busting on it. We bump trolled over there and as soon as we did the side of the rig we just left went ballistic. Capt. gave it about 30 seconds and was like screw those baits get those lines in quick, We can't sit here while they are doing that. As soon as we got the bait back out, the Captains Tiagra 16 went off again, and Andy is on the rod. Then while Jamie is clearing the other line, my rod gets hit again, and Jamie is on it. Now we have a double on, so I set down the popper-rod and go back there to help, I look and Jamie has my avet pushed up way past strike, and I know he was pulling 22-25 pound of drag without a fighting harness. I bet that felt heavy. I back it down a little and let them work. They were doing good zig-zagging around each other, But captain was getting nervous and told somebody to get one of those fish in the boat. A few Minutes later Jamie was whooped and I grabbed my avet from him. I switched to low gear and bumped up the drag and grinded a 100 pounder to surface. Then we fought that other fish for a while. It is amazing what a difference few more pounds of drag makes in the fight time, We had the 16 pushed up to full, but with only 50 pound line, it still was a real battle to get this second 100 pounder in the boat, Makes for a good photo, though.
With everyone tired from 4 big tuna in the boat, we grab a beer and head off to the sword fishing grounds. This is where captain mike started to impress me, and it was nothing groundbreaking, it was just the little details and the attention to everything that he was displaying; from watching the jugs constantly, to the baits he was fishing and the way he rigged them.
The Current was't very strong and the wind was variable, this made the drifts tough, and a couple of times it looked like all three jugs were tracking in different directions from the boat. Bam, one jug pops off and the reel starts screaming. I have done a good bit of night fishing in freshwater, but to see the sword strobe lights coming up to the surface with a fish on it is a pretty cool thing. Get all the lines in and it turns out to be about a 5' shark, maybe a dusky? So we reset all the lines and about 30 mins later another jug pops, off, this one just comes up and goes around the motors, and captain thinks it's a shark, so we leave the lines set. Then all of a sudden the fish come up and breaches right on the other side of the light ring. Wow that's a big sword, so everybody but especially Mike instantly is in freak out mode. Since Jim didn't finish off any tuna, he is on the rod, I run up with him and help capt get the harpoon, get it screwed together, my buddies are getting Jim in the harness. Then we all are clearing lines. Everything settle down, Jim is tired but Mike is pumping him up, saying "this could be the third largest sword in the state if you stay on the rod", and then talking him up repeatedly "Jim I know you are tired but you got to stay with this keep on fighting" Jim would get another burst and about 12:30am this big fat 200 pound sword popped up.
Jim Looking happy with his "Catch of the Day"
Then Mike wanted to somebody to go over and pick him up. Everybody else looking exhausted, so I ran over and gave it the heave-hoe. It took everything I had to get this big boy up to my waist.
We cleared the fish-box to throw the sword on the bottom and the tuna and Ice on top of him. We soon realized we had no more room for fish and the sword bill wouldn't allow the box to close.
I am sort of expecting to haul for the barn and the Captain then looks up at me and says you want to make one more drift. Hell yeah, my kind of fisherman! So we go to reset the lines and soon realize that the bait had gotten lost in the bottom of the fish box. We know we can't let the sun get up, and melt all of our ice, so we decide to make one more drift with the two baits we have remaining.
Captain is letting out the line on first rod when it gets hit before we got the jug on. This turned out to be a little black-fin that we threw back. We only have 1 more bait, but out he goes, and about and hour later the rod goes off. We can tight but after a few minutes the hook pulled. I would have never thought you could talk me into going in early, but with the box full of great fish, we couldn't risk the catch for the morning bite, and I looked around and all I saw was big smiles. I was expecting this to be a trip of lifetime, but everyone on board was thrilled beyond our dreams. Thanks Captain Mike, |
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More Swordfighting along with a few tuna
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The last three weeks have been a blur for me. I did have a break of a week in between for a little lobster diving for mini season and some fun fishing down in Florida. Before I left for vacation the tuna fishing was as good as it gets with the fish close and very cooperative that is if you had the right bait. Getting the right bait was the key to easy catches of nice yellows. Catching the bait was the hard part of the day and took the most time. But it was on once you found some threadfin not being chased by kingfish. I have been using heavier tackle for the tuna since they have bee fighting harder than normal. And when the bite is on it is no time to mess around with light tackle.
The week after my break the fishing remained the same with the tuna still inside the only little change is that if you didn’t find the threadfin they would eat tuna crack or disco minnows. During the week I was able to get in two swordfishing trips. The first one started off real good with a fish that according to the mathematical calculations would weigh in the 190-200lb ranges. Unfortunately the next trip results were not the same as we went 0 for 2. The only thing we caught that night before calling it quits at midnight was a sailfish and a shark. I guess you can call it a billfish release but I couldn’t tag the fish since the tag would have been larger than the sailfish. The little sailfish swam up to my green/ultraviolet swordlight. This light attracts all kinds of bait and UFO’s. The weather has kept me at the dock the last few days. But I will be back chasing the tuna for a few days starting Thursday and hopefully a swordfish or two. Here are a few pictures from the last few weeks.
Capt. Mike |
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Swordfish and tuna report
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I fished the guys from C&T Custom Renovations on thursday night for a sword only charter. Theses guys have never caught a sword before and they had heard how they fight. They were not to be disappointed.
The night started out pretty slow we had a east west drift instead of our normal deep to shallow drift. So it took a few drifts to find the depth they were in. But once we did it was pretty stupid fishing. But up until then we had a few sword imposters namely sharks. But it gave everyone a idea of what to expect when a sword finaly eats the bait. We constantly had magnum turbo sized hardtails in the light along with gogs and a handful of squid and a few 3" dolphin. So making a few livebaits was pretty easy.
Finaly with my crew wondering if there were any swordfish in the gulf. The tip rod with a magnum turbo runner on it gets smoked. But I was never able to get tight on the fish. When the bait was reeled in it had a slash that just about cut it in two. Trey wondered if it was a shark but I assured him a shark would of found the hook. So now the confidence level is back in my crew. And with the swordfish having the upper hand it is now personal. I reset the tip rod and the 200' line with a squid gets nailed but once again I didn't get tight on the fish. Now we are 0 for two but everything was about to change in our favor.
Once again the runner gets whacked and about three feet of line was pulled from the 50W then nothing. But before I could reel in what I thought was another slashed bait. Kyle asks me to check out something on the other side of the boat. It wasn't a fish but it was my disco electralume swimming away from the boat. This fish hit a 300' and went right for the surface. So around the engines with the rod and finaly we are tight on a sword. It gave us a few jumps and settled into his comfort zone but with 20lbs at strike we had the fish to the boat pretty quickly. I gaffed it a pulled it into the boat only to find it was perfectly lassoed behind the gill plates. It measured out at 49" and since it was leagal and a very fat fish and my anglers first. I gutted him and iced him down. Now I have a idea on where to reset my lines. I went right back to my man overboard mark and as I was setting out the second line the 200' line gets hit. I came tight on the fish and put Kyle in the harness this fish didn't do much at all when he popped up at the boat I could only see a few feet of my leader. I guess the hook had done some major damage to this fish. He was barly legal but legal so we kept him instead of feeding him to the sharks.
The next drift I was able to get all of the baits out before we got a hit. And again it was on the 200' line. When I came tight on the fish I could tell it was a better fish than the other two in the box so another angler was harnessed in and the fight was on. I readied the harpoon and went over what I wanted everyone to do. After the hour and ten minute mark the fish started to tire and we were able to gain line on him. When he got close I harpooned him and pulled him into the boat. This fish measured out at 62"X39" and later weighed in at 133.7lbs which is good enough for number eight in the state of Louisana. It not a big one for South Florida but not many guys fish them over here. And the fishery is still unexplored.
Now with our three fish in the box. Well two in the box and the bill of the last fish sticking out of it. I reset for our last drift since I only had one squid left. As it got into postion the jug pops off and we are tight again to another fish. Kyle gets another shot on this fish since the one he had in the boat was pretty small and didn't put up much of a fight. He did a good job on the fish with the drag at sunset. I wanted to see what kind of heat I could put on a fish without the hook pulling and I was going to release the fish anyway. We got him to the boat real quick. So I grabbed the gloves and billed him only to have the hook fall out. Which was perfect but with him being green and not very happy I had him by the nose I let him go without a measurement. But he looked to be in the low 50" range. Now I was wishing I wouldn't of killed the smaller fish. But he was gut hooked and was going to die. So I did the right thing. We cleaned the boat up and everyone was pleased with going 4 for 6 for the night. My next sword trip is on the 18th. But I have several days of tuna fishing after that so it might take a week for the outcome to be posted.
Capt. Mike
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Venice Swordfishing
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I knew that the northen gulf had swordfish since a few other captains have caught them up here. And I finaly had the crew to give them a shot. So I studied the charts and pulled my swordfish gear out of the closet to give them a shot. I picked out a deepwater dropoff point area for my starting point. The baits went out and we had about a thirty minute wait before the first fish was hooked up. The fish was pulling pretty good but was at the boat in a little under a hours time. But I goofed and put to much pressure on him and pulled the hook at the boat. So I went from hero to zero in a heartbeat. The fish was a good one and we just watched him swim away from us. Nothing left to do but reset our gear so that is what I did. On the next drift we had a double runoff one fish was not fighting and the other was going nuts. The one not fighting was a small but keeper sized sword and I had Peter the angler lock the drag up and get him to the boat so he wouldn’t tangle the much larger fish up and beak him off. Well the hook didn’t pull and the sword just fought harder and wrapped up the other fish. So I managed to get it unwrapped and not break either fish off. The the first sword decide he had enough and spit the hook after all of that. Oh well we still had the larger fish on. But as luck would have it the fish turned out to be a very large hammerhead. So I ended my first La. swordfishing trip going 0 for two.
I had another sword trip scheduled a few days later. So I knew I would have my revenge at that time. I set out on a mission to learn all of the tricks to keep theses fish on the hooks better and got some very good information to put into use on my next trip. My next obstacle came in trying to find the right sized squid for bait. The smallest squid to be found was about 16-18” long but it was the best bait available so it would have to work. I got everything rigged and ready to go but arriving at my first spot I found absolutely no current whatsoever. But I did see a bluefin tuna in the 500-700lb class skying on some form of bait. But with no current I decided to go to another spot I had marked on the charts. About a mile or so into the ride to the next spot I did a 180 and went on a feeling I had. I am glad that I did because at this spot we went 2 for 6 here is the recap of that trip.
I setup on a very steep drop off from 700’ to 2000’ in about a three mile distance. I put the swordlight in the water in 1200’ and was amazed at all of the life in the water squid,gogs,flyingfish, and three inch dolphin. So as the first bait was going out I clipped the jug to it and got it all of about fifty feet away before it gets nailed. And the fight is on Will Wall fought this fish for about ten minutes before the hook pulled. No problem we are on them so I tried to put the rest of the baits out but I couldn’t as soo as the bait got the the edge of the light circle it would get whacked. So here we are thirty minutes into the trip and our score was 0 for 3. Well I though it couldn’t get much worse I reset the baits in deeper water to have them all out when I go back to the proper depth the fish were in. As the bottom machine clicked down to the proper depth it was on as soon as the magic number appeared on the screen. This fish was different from the get go than the others. He did his best to dump a 50W as he slowed down I put Brycene into the harness for his shot at a sword. He did a good job of fighting the fish and at the hour forty five minute mark the fish became tail wrapped and he got him to the boat quickly. I grabbed the leader to set a flying gaff into him but I guess I changed the pulling point on the leader and he got his tail free and lunged away while I still had the leader and he pulled the hook. This was the largest sword I have ever seen at the side of the boat. I don’t know for sure if he was over three hundred but if we wasn’t he couldn’t of been very far from it. Great I though here I am at 0 for 4 so I reset baits to give it another shot I was determined to not get a sword on this trip. I made another drift with nothing to show for it. But the next one had a good runoff when the bottom machine was showing the magic number again. I put Will back in the harness for another shot at a fish. This time the swordfish gods were on our side and in a little under an hour I was putting the gaff to a good swordfish. Now that the first fish was aboard I was relieved. But I remembered I had one more angler to break in on a sword so back to the starting point and reset. It took the third drift before we finaly hooked up again at 5 AM as I was reeling in the baits to go home. This fish came to the boat pretty easy at first but he saw the boat and jumped once and then he put on a pretty good fight but Ed manged to get him to the boat for the gaff shot and a ride to the dock. We ended the night with that fish with the final score of 2 for 6. I only talked about the swordfish trips I have had lately and did not mention the tuna trips I have been running in which I have had tuna to 150lbs. and plenty of nice dolphin. Once again Venice Louisiana proved why we have the best fishing in the United States.
Capt. Mike
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Two days of dedicated deep jigging
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2 days of jigging with Capt Mike Ellis of Relentless Sportsfishing out of Venice, LA. I had the pleasure to fish with Felix Locicero, Frank Moncrief, Eugene Pacowski from the East Coast and Andrew Fernandez from California.
We went for sport on the 1st day which saw us hitting some decent sized AJs in the 20-50lb range, we had our limits by late morning but not without losing bunch of jigs to unstoppables that headed for structures. At one rig, we ran into a school of wahoo and many lines got nicked before Eugene landed a good 60lb wahoo that won the jackpot for the day. Sharks were also a nuisance as many fish came back with only the head. Andrew jigged a huge red drum on one of the buoys, the biggest I've seen so far.
On the second day, the plan was to fill ice box with table fish. We hit a few shallow rigs for snappers and got close to limits before heading for deeper rigs in search for good eating groupers and groupers were there waiting to be caught. In between good eating fish we also caught some decent size jack crevalle and cobias that put up good fight and it was Eugene again who got the day jackpot with a hefty king mack. I got myself my first 20+lb cobia on a falling jig, those fish fight hard! Over the 2 days we caught 14 species of fish, really interesting trip.
Overall I rate this a superb trip with good weather, knowledgeable Capt and most importantly excellent company. Everyone went home happy, satisfied and plenty of fillets!
More pics on http://deepjigging.com/forumdisplay.php?f=5
Randy
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Randy
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