After several weeks of strong easterlies and a brush with a tropical storm, the gulf laid flat like a pond, allowing for beautiful conditions. On Saturday I ran a trip for the Mexican Gulf Fishing Company. My crew consisted of a all star MLB line up that included hall of fame inductee Barry Larkin, formerly of the Cincinnati Reds. We rolled down the river at 50 m.p.h. and I never had to pull the throttles back once we hit the gulf. We started out wahoo fishing and only had a pull off to show for a serious effort. A capt. buddie hit me up on the radio that he had found some stud yellows and to get there quick. He was about fifteen miles away and in no time we pulled up to find his client bowed up in the harness. After a short lesson in chunking we picked up seven jumbo blackfin. We reset and started the process again and doubled up on two serious fish but broke one off in the pandemonium of trying to clear the lines as the fish crossed each other. The little 30w Tiagra was still screaming and we gave chase and was able to settle in with a straight up and down fight. Forty five minutes past by like five hours, add alot of grunts and groans and throw in a few select words and I sunk the gaffs in a nice fish in the 120-130lb class. We reset again and caught jumbo blacks on after the other keeping six more and releasing the rest. The guys called it a day early feeling satisfied and in the need of a cocktail. On Sunday the conditions were the same. I headed to the same area and we got started. Again, the blacks were thick. These are the 20-30lb jobs that eat anything thrown in the water. We fished into the early afternoon without seeing a yellow, when two studs appeared deep in the slick about 40ft down. They were playing hard to get eating everything without a hook. I downsized to 60lb Frenzy floro to try and get them to eat. We kept laying out the buffet when a nice cow dolphin showed up and we caught her quick. I kept feeding the tuna and finally the bigger of the two came right up and ate my chunk on que. I settled in and fought this fish while the guys were feeding two other tuna that came up on the other side of the boat. I am leaning on this fish hard when I look over and there is a wahoo in the 80lb class eating everything and lit up like a neon sign in the cobalt blue water. I yell for Capt. Mike to hook him. He ate the chunk as soon as it hit the water and streaked off on the surface for Mexico. The wahoo ate thru the floro after ten minutes which I was surprised it took that long. In the process Kevin hooked one of the other tuna and now we were doubled up on fatty's. Close to an hour later I finally had my tuna on its side and two gaffs later, a nice fish in the 140lb class hit the deck. I immediately focused my attention on Kevin's fish which was giving him a hard time. Another thirty minutes past and the circles got smaller and after an intense moment with a deep gaff we layed a nice fish in the 120lb class right next to his buddy in a bloody mess. Cool way to end the day indeed. The fishing here in Venice is strong right now as long as the weather permits. Starting in January it will go into full swing on large yellowfin and wahoo. I have dates available in December and the upcoming big fish season. Give me a call to book your next trip in Venice.

Captain William Wall
Pelagic Charters
1.225.454.5365

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Hey guys, we are making our first trip Venice after Christmas. We do quite a bit of offshore fishing here in SC but our yellowfin tuna are non existent especially these 100 plus pounders you boys are catching.

All this is to say we have a Contender 31 fish around. The fish arounds do not have the forward big fish boxes the opens do. It only has the two rear boxes. They will hold a good number of dolphin and wahoo but I have never had the opportunity to stuff one of these big boy tuna in there.

Looking at Captain Eddies pictures I not very optimistic that one would fit. Now also I know I am putting the cart before the horse cause Captain Eddie makes it look easy to catch the big ones but if the opportunity presents it self I want to be ready. What is the best option? Big fish bag?

Thanks!

If I read the below statement correct we could all pitch in 100.00 and get us a lobbing firm that would take our case. 15,000,000 that is million with an M. is a lot of cash and we all know money talks and BS walks. I know there are lawyers on this forum that can draw up the needed papers and get us headed in the correct direction how about it? I will put in the first 100.00 to get it started. Lets start a list of who is willing to put in $100.00 to help. if we get started with 3 or 4 MILLION there would not be a way to stop us. Come on fellow fishermen and fisher ladies let support our right to fish. each one of us has spent several thousand dollars to go fishing so 100.00 is cheap to keep that right. Quit bitching and start doing something about it. What lawyer will offer a couple of hrs of their time to help us. Who on here understands how a lobbing firm works and how to hire a good one? Lets take our right to fish back before we lose it all. they know if we don't band together they can push us around.



David I hope you don't mind I used this post that I copied from another post
"I have been active in this fight for several years, but I remain frustrated because my fellow fishermen would prefer to sit around and gripe about the situation instead of doing something. There are roughly 3500 Charter Boats along the gulf coast and in FL. If every one of these guys pitched in $1000 to help fight the left wing environmental lobby, they would have a total of about $3.M to fight the lobby. On the other hand, there are almost 150,000 individual recreational fishermen in that same region (I cant find my data on this right now, so I don't have exact numbers, but these should be close). If each recreational fishermen pitched in $100 to help fight the cause, thats $15,000,000. $M is a damned sight better than $3-M. Yet everyone's bitching but the ones putting their money where there mouth is are the Charter guys.
Fishermen, all of us, use untold amounts of time, energy, money, etc thinking about, discussing, reminiscing, boats, fishing, tackle, etc. Not to mention the amount of resources that are required to actually GO FISHING. That's what gives all of us our common bond. At least when it comes to boating, fishing, etc, we all invest lots of time, energy, and money in it. I am always disappointed when no one wants to stand-up and fight for it.
Maybe, when the Govt, gets finished taking fishing and boating away from us, we'll be able to invest all that energy and money into knitting, basket weaving, crochet, and the like. I don't know about you, but thats a day I am really looking forward to!

As far as the peaceful protest goes - let me know if someone wants to have random fella tag along. Kamori is still on the hill.

David A. Purvis
(251) 656-2352 "
:tht_rulez::tht_rulez::tht_rulez::tht_rulez::tht_r ulez::tht_rulez::tht_rulez::tht_rulez:

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I managed to get back in time from my vacation to take one trip offshore in the flat calm waters we had for a couple days. I had Josh and his group in from Chattanooga, tn for a day trip for their first ever tuna trip. I told them after the trip if you want a repeat stay home cause they had a heckuva first time trip. We started off by catching a few blackfins. We saw a couple yfs but they wouldnt cooperate. For a couple hours we had quick as you can get in the water action on blackfins and bonitos. They were in a virtual feeding frenzy behind the boat. Around noon we had 17 blackfin in the box and we had released another half dozen more. We made one more drift and it ended up being the last after we had the gorrillas show up in the slick. About 5 minutes into that drift they showed up gliding through the water eating everything we threw in. I will never get it over watching the sickle fins of huge yf out of the water as they surf through my chum slick. I threw a bait in the water and one of them crushed it and we had a solid hookup on the 80w. We still had at least 2 more jumbos in the slick so I got a little greedy and threw out a 50 wide and got one to eat. I decided two jumbos at a time was enough so we let the rest of them live. After about a 30 minute fight on the 80 the first one was in the boat. The one on 50 was about 250 yards out on the surface at that point. since one was out the way we could actively chase down the long fish. Got on top of the 2nd one and it was mean. Of course having it on 80 pound leader instead of the heavy stuff made a difference as we couldnt put the heat on as much. About 45 minutes after we landed fish one I stuck fish number two and we heaved it in the boat to finish off my personal best double hookup. The tail of the tape is 176 and 185 for a combined weight of 361 pounds between 2 yft.

I want to fish inshore/nearshore Venice the day after Thanksgiving. What are my options? We'll be fishing from a 24-foot bay boat, so we can't go way out.

River too high for the spillways?

How are the "close in" rigs like the ones in east bay, out of Baptiste Collete, Main Pass? What might be find at South and Soutwest Pass? West Delta?

We would like to catch trout and reds and mangrove snapper if possible? Are the cobia gone for winter?

Thanks

Disregard

Left Friday late afternoon with the plan to swordfish friday night, bottomfish sat morning and then head deep saturday afternoon for some tuna. The swordfish didn't cooperate with only one good run and a slashed bait to show for our efforts. Grouper were even a little slow and we worked hard deep dropping for a few nice snowy's. Thankfully the tuna were on fire and big. Ended up with 18 yellowfin, 6 between 95-120 and the rest being nice fish. Caught on every bait from live to dead to plastic. Had a great crew on board and was able to de-virginize a couple of buddies from medschool.

Why do they always bring cold weather?!!

Left DI Sat. am headed 190 degrees,beautiful weather,picked up a couple of hooters in 900' on hard baits,lost 2 also.
Trolled around Ram Powell,blue green,but more blue than green.
Caught 2 YF chunkin' blackfin,approx. 80# each.Can't wait to get back to Horn Mountain!!

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We are heading to Venice LA after Christmas to try the tuna fishing. I have a Raymarince C120 and really need to borrow or buy a:
NAVIONICS CF/15XG-2 GOLD XL9 USA - CENTRAL

chip for my unit. It looks like they cost just under $200. I doubt we will use it again since LA is almost 900miles from home. Trying to find a cheaper solution than spending that kind of money on a chip to use 5 times. Ideas??

Well the boat is totaled. The insurance company has been great so far. Sent a check right away to fix my truck. Just waiting for a bill of sale to sign to get paid for it. Very stand up people. Very happy with how they handled it. They paid for truck, trailer and boat. All I asked for.

I found a newer Kencraft 215 (my dream boat) for sale (in the for sale section here) and decided to check it out. Sr and I left Louis Armstrong at 6am Saturday morning for Norfolk, Virginia. We then hopped in a rental car and drove to Ahoskie, North Carolina. The boat is in just freakin awsome shape. It's a 2002 with 188 hours on it. The previous owner took really really good care of it. Shines like new. After a ride in the boat I was sold. Handed over a check and inked the deal! Not sure how I'm transporting home it yet since Sr and I flew back today, but I need to get it back to Louisiana in one piece!
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Made a quick trip down river to see how the camp and marsh made out after the storm. Got a late start Friday so we didn't get to do a whole lot of scouting, but the little we saw looked like the marsh made out OK. Headed to the double top secret spot Saturday morning only to have a couple boats cut us off from where we wanted to set up. Improvised a little and we were setup in a makeshift blind for sun up. Not a whole lot of ducks in the area, but we seemed to be in a good area and made our opportunities count. Had a 3 man limit by about 8:30 with a little of everything. Mostly greys, pintail, and a couple teal and red heads. Heard a bunch of widgeon but never saw any. From all the reports we heard, it sounded pretty slow everywhere else, and we didn't hear of many other limits. Looks like it's going to take come colder weather to get 'em down here. Anyhow, grabbed a bite for lunch at the camp and then put about 50 really nice trout in the boat before heading back up river. All in all, not a bad opener. Now let's hope the birds and wahoo start to show up in numbers...

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It sure had been a long time! Some times you get in a rhythm with the weather and it is good on the days you are booked and sometimes you get it backwards which is where I’ve been for quite some time now, hopefully the trend is switching. Friday I had Chris Kelly and family/friends and after a year and a half of cancellations the weather finally cooperated for him. The fishing was great as well and with a boat of no longer tuna virgins I was glad to see it. It never was insanely fast but every time we hooked one fish we wound up doubling up. We ended the day with four big ones with the biggest going 148# and 128# and four small ones as well as three other big ones lost to a broken line and pulled hooks.




It really didn’t seem to matter what kind of bait you were using you just had to be in the right place at the right time. We caught fish on hardtails, mullet, and even on a little blackfin we caught on a butterfly jig. They weren’t being shy either with most fish biting 100# seguar fluorocarbon leader and 8/0 Mustad circle hooks.
This is the time of year when the tuna are typically a little larger with fish over 100# not uncommon throw in the wahoo that should be really starting to show as I’m typing this and you got the recipe for an unforgettable day of fishing.
The weather looks like its going to cooperate this week and we have some openings so give us a call to get out on the water.
Capt. Billy Wells
Mexican Gulf Fishing Company

Venice report
Friday we went long, south out of South Pass. Total catch 1 shark,3 cuda's and 1 grouper. Three others boats out with us no one did anything this is in Mars area. Never found blue water although it was close to being blue. Trip was 175 miles and 97 gallons of gas. Water was calm to light chop.

Saturday we went SSW out of Tiger Pass. Ended the day with 2 Ambrjack and 10 Red Snapper all more than 6 lbs and two at or approaching 20 lbs.
Yes, all were vented and released. We hit two underwater locations I had on my GPS which I had never been too. We instantly hooked up with snappers at both, water depth just over 200. Trip was 115 miles and 61 gallons of gas. Water condition was like glass the entire trip.

First trip out since May it's good to see all still working on the boat.

If anypne knows how to catch grouper and keep the snappers away please advise.

I did run into rbhankins001 Thursday afternoon, but have not heard how he did.