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Louisiana - Venice & the Gulf of Mexico
Capt. Damon McKnight
July 12, 2001
Venice - Saltwater Fishing Report
Bluewater Fishing
So far this summer the fishing has been unbelievable out of Venice, La. We have been fishing the rip lines, floaters, and drill ships off of our coast. We have mainly been catching Tuna, Dolphin, Wahoo, and Marlin. Also, we have been fishing the permanent rigs for snapper, amberjack, cobia, grouper, and a big variety of fish.
This past Saturday we had Orlando Borst and friends down from North Mississippi. We headed out to the floaters which are rigs that float on the surface because they don't stay in one spot very long. These floaters attract many different kinds of species of fish which I am going to tell you about. We have been using mainly live bait for tuna fishing. We put our hardtails out and started slow trolling for Tuna. The morning started out slow but by noon we had our first Yellowfin explode on one of our hardtails. Fifteen minutes later we put a 75lb. yellowfin tuna in the boat. Within the next 2 hours we hooked 4 more big yellowfin but they all got off. Unexplainable, but that is fishing. It was just one of those days. We did manage to put eight blackfin in the boat by casting tiger poppers to them while we slow trolled.
On Sunday we had Steve Geshed and family down to do some more bluewater fishing. We headed back out to the floaters and started trolling our live bait. While we were trolling our hardtails an enormous school of poroises showed up and started taking our bait right off the hook. They must have been very hungry because they usually won't touch anything with a hook in it. While we were fighting with the porpoises I looked up and saw something sticking up out of the water. From a distance it looked like a whale shark eating plankton on the surface. As we moved in closer to see what it was we figured it out. It was a huge sail from a sailfish sticking up out of the water and a white marlin swimming along side. The scramble in the boat started. We pitched everything we had to them but they just would not eat. After about ten minutes of pitching they slowly disappeared into the depths. We ended the day with some nice bull dolphin and went home with some great pictures of the sailfish and white marlin swimming together. This is very unusual.
On Tuesday we had John Robertson and family down to go out rig fishing. They caught plenty of snapper, amberjack, and cobia. They also lost plenty of fish that just could not be stopped. It was a great day and we had calm seas.
The fishing down here in Venice, La. is just about as good as it gets. The article in Sportfishing Magazine which was in the June issue about deep drop fishing will explain how the rigs in this area produce plenty of big fish. You should definately check it out. Capt. Damon McKnight
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