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Venice Inlet and the Gulf of Mexico
Capt. Dave Pinkham
October 17, 2000
Venice - Saltwater Fishing Report
Kingfish Just Offshore Of Venice Beaches
This is one of my favorite times of the year. As each day that passes grows a little shorter and the nights longer, the air and water temperatures have starting to cool down, thus opening up all sorts of fishing opportunities out on the Gulf of Mexico. Fall is the time of year when the Gulf's surface waters can come alive with all sorts of fish feeding in the upper water column.
Although the wind blew pretty steady out of the northeast all last week, for those that managed to get out on the Gulf and do some fishing the action was nothing short of exciting. Last Friday I had the pleasure of guiding Ferold Davis along with Dick and Carol Bader of Englewood out for a "bankers holiday". Considering there was a stiff northeast blowing as we cleared the jetty, compounded with the fact of a full moon the night before, I was somewhat apprehensive as to whether the fish would cooperate or not. Originally the plan was to do some bottom fishing for grouper, but as we put a few miles between us and the protection of the coastline the northeast winds pushed the seas higher the farther we went. We luckily spotted some terns working the surface about 6 miles out and decided to check it out. Sure enough under the diving birds there was a lot of splashing going on indicating feeding fish. We quickly put out a couple of planing boards and spoon trolling rigs behind the boat and headed for the fish and bird mayhem going on just off the bow. As we made our first pass through the surface activity both the reels started screaming obviously with fish on. After a good round of tug-of-war between fishers and fish, two 12-pound jack crevele were brought to the boat, photographed and released.
For the next couple hours no sooner than we would get the rigs out then we would have another fish on. At one point we pulled though a school of big redfish which probably weighed in close to the 25 pounds. As you know, or should know the maximum size for redfish is 28" inches long, so after a quick photo session they were carefully released also. Up to this point with all this action we still hadn't caught anything we could take home for dinner. That is until we started hitting the kingfish! Anyway just so you all know, right now the catching not just the fishing is happening on the Gulf.
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