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Louisiana - Venice & the Gulf of Mexico
Capt. Damon McKnight
November 1, 2000
Venice - Saltwater Fishing Report
The fishing out of Venice, LA has been unbelievable. We have been out fishing the past three days so I have some incredible fishing reports to give.
On Monday morning we took out Larry Abbot and friends to do some yellowfin tuna fishing. We headed out of South Pass to find 2 foot seas which is perfect for trolling. We made it seven miles out and came across a good rip with plenty of birds feeding on it. We set the daisy chains out and almost immediately we had a double hook-up on tuna, and got both in the boat. They went about 65-70lbs and looked like they were out of the same mold.
We trolled for about another 25 minutes and had our third hook-up. This time the fish hit a cd-18 mullet rapala. The drag started peeling out and I knew we had a big fish on. Larry took the rod and started to fight him. Well, about 1 ½ hours later we still hadn't seen the fish. Larry would take some line in and the fish would pull it right back out. He was starting to feel the effects of a big tuna fight when he literally started to throw-up all over himself and the boat just from straining so hard for 2 hours.
Two and a half hours later we had him just outside of gaffing range and the leader broke along with Larry's heart. We estimated the tuna to be about 205lbs. This would have placed third in the state for yellowfin tuna. We ended the day early with two nice yellowfin and a story to tell.
On Tuesday afternoon Brent Ballay, J.P. Solis, and myself left out to fish for Marlin. We were heading 50 miles out to a floating rig named Mars. This was an overnight trip and we had a greenhorn on board. J.P. had never caught a blue marlin before so we were ready to get him on his first blue. Our plan was to sleep out at the floater and wake up before light to start trolling.
We couldn't have picked a better night, the seas were calm and the lights on the floater had attracted black and yellowfin tuna. We pulled up to the rig and started jigging with diamond jigs and we were catching one tuna after the other. We only kept 10 because we really hadn't planned on fishing for tuna and didn't bring enough ice for more fish.
We woke up at about 5:30 a.m. and started trolling. There are two floaters that we wanted to fish, and they are Mars and Ursa. Mars and Ursa are in about 3000 ft. of water and are about 2 miles apart. This has been a hotspot for marlin for the past 5 years.
After our first rap around the Ursa platform we started trolling back to Mars, all of a sudden about 100 chicken dolphin starting jumping at full speed and heading straight to the platform to get away from something. We all looked at each other and said get ready. Sure enough the port outrigger line popped off and we had our first marlin of the day on. He jumped out of the water about three times and then went down. J.P. fought him to the boat and we tagged and released him with no problem. The marlin was about 225 lbs. and was absolutely beautiful.
We made J.P. jump in the water to celebrate his first marlin and we all had a celebration beer. We caught him on a pink and white bobby-pop which is made locally by, believe it or not, an inshore guide.
We trolled about 1 more hour and started to head in to find a rip. We found the perfect rip about 32 miles out of Southwest Pass. Dirty brown water that met with cobalt blue water and it was full of grass. We put the lines out and immediately hooked up a big bull dolphin. He put up an awesome aerial display on and we finally got him to the boat. He weighed 58lbs., and we caught him on a green and yellow wooly-booger on the center rigger.
We put the lines back out and started trolling again. We were definitely on a serious hot-spot. There were chicken-dolphin and hardtails everywhere. While we were trolling we saw two marlin jumping and chasing dolphin along the rip. We finally got to the area where they were feeding and out of nowhere about a 250lb. blue was jumping right next to the boat after a single chicken dolphin. Needless to say, everyone in the boat was amazed. We turned around on the rip and an hour had gone by and we still had no more strikes.
We were listening on the VHF that there were three other boats hooked up with blue marlin. We were patiently waiting for our 2nd marlin of the day. Brent spotted a blue just swimming along the rip and was yelling for everyone to come look at him, which turned out to be a her. We got up there and we couldn't believe the size of her, she was at least 550lbs. The minute we passed she lit up and went straight for the pink and white bobby pop. We were hooked up again, she went nuts, she was jumping and greyhounding and for a brief second we thought she had thrown the hook but the lure had slid about 40 yards up the 80lb. test line. She was definitely on, we fought her for about 1 hour and 15 minutes put a tag in her and set her free.
After the last fish everyone was tired so we headed back in with some great pictures and memories. The pink and white marlin bait turned out to be the hot lure of the day – the pink and white lures have always been extremely effective in the Gulf of Mexico for Marlin, Tuna, and Wahoo.
This is just a little taste of offshore fishing off the coast of Louisiana. The fishing down here is just about as good as it gets. Give us a call and let Super Strike Charters and Capt. Damon McKnight put you on some fish.
See ya soon.
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