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Venice Inlet and the Gulf of Mexico
Capt. Dave Pinkham
February 4, 2003
Venice - Saltwater Fishing Report
Gulf Fishing Improves As Gulf Warms!
Fishing action out on the Gulf of Mexico over this past week was definitely an improvement over last week. The fish were somewhat sluggish in the morning, but on just about every fishing trip we were out on over the week, the fish seemed to turn on and feed at some point in the day.
For instance, on Saturday we had a four hour charter booked leaving the dock at 11:30am. A good friend of mine Capt. Richard Nutter, who by the way does a great job, was running the Legacy, with Tom Masse aboard as deckhand. Honestly a four hour fishing trip is really not a lot of time to get offshore and locate some feeding fish.
You may recall there was a mild cold front that passed through right about noon on Saturday. Anyway, the group of anglers no sooner got offshore to their destination which was about eight miles west of Venice Inlet when the front passed though and the wind swung around from the north.
They were fishing around one of the several man-made county reefs. The bite started somewhat slow. Noticing some schools of sardines in the area, the guys jigged a few fresh baits up with sibiki rigs. Cutting the still wiggling sardines in half and dropping them to the bottom made all the difference! What'd they catch? You probably won't believe it. A mess of flounder, and some big ones too! The crazy thing was that the flatties wouldn't hit anything but the fresh cut live sardines. The fish were there, but without the perfect bait, the anglers never would even have known the fish were there, let alone caught them.
One of the fishing trips I ran over the week was a 10 hour tour, with a group of anglers out of Rotunda in Englewood. Doug Meyerink put the trip together with his friends, Dave Wiersma, Tom Wiersma, Bill Moran, Fred Butler, and Phil VanWiltenburg. These guys are all experienced fisherman, and most of them have their own boats. They wanted to catch amberjack to start, and then go after some grouper. AJ's like live bait so we made a stop on the way out to fill up the bait tank. The bait bite was slow and it took a while to catch enough live bait fish to make the run offshore worthwhile. Live bait fish can sometimes make the difference between success and failure.
With the bait tank brimming with livies we shot out to a spot that I was hoping was holding some big amberjacks. We tossed the anchor and moved in close to what looked like a stack of amberjack on the fish finder screen. As the anchor came tight, one thing I didn't anticipate was the tide, and we swung around just off the spot where I wanted the boat to sit.
I've been fishing long enough to know that's it's always a good idea to give luck a chance, so I instructed the crew of hearty anglers to go ahead and drop their baits to the bottom anyway. Sure enough, the fuzz on my fish finder was a school of big gag groupers and the fish were in the mood to eat live grunts! To top it off the AJ's must have seen the grouper as they were cranked up to the boat, because they soon swam over and got in on the action as well.
I've always believed that with fishing, if you do everything right, sooner or later you will get lucky. The point I'm trying to make here is that preparation often pays off. Sure we drifted off the spot, but we were ready for action! The reels were all spooled with good line. The knots and leaders had all just been freshly retied. The live bait well was loaded. Everything was working and the time was right.
Remember, if you're too busy to go fishing you're just too busy! Get out and go fishin cuz' it's good fer ya!
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