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Louisiana - Venice & the Gulf of Mexico
Capt. Damon McKnight
February 14, 2003
Venice - Saltwater Fishing Report
One-Hundred Pounders!
The offshore fishing is absolutely at its best right now. All I can say is that they are biting non-stop. The past two days have been incredible to say the least. Plenty of Yellowfin Tuna and Blackfin Tuna were caught and all of the yellowfin were over 100lbs.
On Tuesday we had Chris Holland, his dad, Bob, and Mark. They put 4 yellowfin over 100lbs. in the boat and two blackfin. We did only lose 1 fish but he was on for about a second so I am not sure how big he was. Our hook-up ratio was close to excellent. The rod was passed at least 3 times for every fish. The longest fight was about 45 minutes. The last yellowfin of the day weighed about 140lbs. Here goes the weird part of the fish story. The big fish of the day ran out 150 yds. of line and Chris was fighting him. About 2 minutes later another boat that was fishing about 95 yds. off of our port bow came riding up next to us trying to tell us something. He was yelling something about how he lost his anchor rope and if our fish was tangled in it and we get him in, to hold on to it for him and he would come and get it. The only part I had gotten out of it was that he thought our fish was tangled up in his rope, and they didn't know where their rope was. So, I started to think that maybe he was because the fish wasn't running out any drag, and it was slowly coming to the surface, almost as if he was tail wrapped. After 15 minutes of slow reeling and no line being ripped out like most yellowfin do, we had decided that he was definately wrapped in the rope. I saw a spot in the mono that looked like it had rubbed against rope. Seeing this made us think, Yep he is in the rope. We put the rod in the rod holder, cranked up the drag and slowly kept taking in line. We figured we would at least get the anchor rope. Well, it turned out the fish wasn't wrapped and he just slowly came to the surface (10 minutes later). I stuck him with the gaff, and put him in the boat. When we got back to the dock I asked the captain what had happened to his rope. He said that when our fish ran drag the first and only time, it went right across his rope and our MONOFILAMENT sliced/burned it in half. I have never seen or heard of this happening before. I don't know for sure or not that this happened but the guys in the other boat definately had their anchor rope cut somehow. I knew I was using good fishing line but I didn't know it was that good.
Yesterday, two good friends and myself went out fishing. We managed to break two rods and lose about 4 big yellowfin, We did however put 4 yellowfin (all over 100lbs.) in the boat along with 11 blackfin tuna. We caught and released 1 yellowfin and I am not sure how many blackfin.
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