My boss and his boss wanted to catch some fish on Saturday. Weather looked good so we decided to make the run offshore. These guys are avid inshore fisherman but i keep telling them that all they catch in the rivers are only "bait" for what we catch offshore. Left Venice marina ~4:15 and we were off. The plan was to hit the Millennium ship out of South Pass and load up on the hot phin bite. Then do some tuna fishing. The first stop was bait. Hit a semi formed weedline around Cognac but the water was not clear and there was no life on it. Well, i was getting nervous up until 2 miles from millennium. Finally hit a line that had some bait on it. The water was still not clear although fairly blue. Definitely, no phins like there had been the past couple weeks. I am sure water clarity had something to do with it. Anyway, we were able to pick off a few nice phins throughout the morning. There were tuna at the ship, they would come up every 20 minutes or so and put on a show. ~10:00 one of my Penn 50's starts getting dumped and it was on. My boss's Boss, The"General" as we call him (Retired 2 Star). Was on it. Well, plan and simple. He was owned.
He had to give the poll up. The fished owhed a couple other people to untill i broke out the harness (thanks BOOMER). The harness helped the angler"s" out considerably and the fish was landed.
My crew didn't want any other dealings with Mr. Tuna (really) so i decided the head back toward Cognac and hit the weedline again for phins. Started casting and trolling (light spread). The General was holding a Penn 7500 with a topwater bait dragging it beind the back of the boat. I am looking back at the spread and i see a white smacking his topwater! I told him to open the bail for a second and when he closed it again sure enough, the white went sky high
I never caught a marlin before so obviously things were crazy. The white, after several nice jumps, spit the hook. I estimated 50#s. Very excited, we put our halfa$$ trolling spread out again and the same General, same 7500, same lure, got smoked again! This one took it from the side and never looked back. He jumped several times and was 2 bail turns from spooling us. Why do they always hit the phuny reels?
The General just could not keep up with this fish and we lost him also. Bigger fish, more like 80#s. That was an unbelievable 1/2 hour.
Getting late in the day we headed back to Venice and was met by a torrid thundeshower. I know why i have a cabin on my boat now
Venice La. doesn't dissapoint again!
Jim
Venice 6-30 
