|
|
|
Ruby Red Lip
 
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 11/15/2008 4:25:15 PM
Posts: 35,
Visits: 187
|
|
I was invited to take a boat over to venice marina with some friends. We left Long Beach, MS at 0630 on Tuesday morning and ran calm seas to venice Marina in about 4 hours. after fuel and ice, and loading another couple of friends on the boat, we headed out for blue water. After my last trip, where we found blue 10 miles North of Cognac, I was getting concerned when we passed Lena and were still in brown water. This turned to blue about 15 mile further out where there was a fantastic rip, covered with weed. We dropped the first bait, a Black Bart from the starboard rigger, and before we could sot another rod, a 30+lb dolphin smashed the lure. That was loaded into the cooler and we reset all the rigs. It was then one Dolphin after another for about 3 hours. Many chickens, but also some good sized ones. About an 2 hours before dark we headed out to Mars hoping to get an evening Yellowfin bite. Although we saw a few busting the top , we didn't hook up. The only thing we caught there before dark was Barracuda when we got too close to the rig. One of the guys with us was from nebraska and brought huge steaks with him. We fired up a small charcoal grill on the back deck and was able to cook 2 at a time. I don't think the crew of the crew boat we were sheltering by were very impressed with the flams as they kept telling us to go away After dinner it was time for some jigging for Tuna. Some nice sized Blackfin were boated, along with several Tuna heads. The sharks were a little too active. They ran us off, over to Ursa, where absolutely nothing was going on. Most of the crew started falling asleep so we headed back to Mars. Same thing with the sharks, but if you used 3/0 tackle and reeled like a madman you could sometimes beat the ba***stds. At 0510 I called it a day on the Tuna. Several Yellowfin were hitting the top during the night, but we just couldn't get a popper to them. I went to the cabin and crashed as the boat went back to the rip. More of the same. Some really nice dolphin, along with a bunch of chickens. One wahoo showed up for a few seconds, but didn't make it to the boat. A whale shark got so close to the boat i could have grabbed his tail. We saw several blue and white Marlin, but were meat fishing, so didn't really try, but one did smash a Black Bart without eating the hook. we got back to Venice through building seas around a thunderstorm about 1500. After the photos we leaded the fish back into coolers and headed for the house. 7 of us in an F-250 made a tight squeeze. Total for the day was 52 Mahi and 11 Blackfin. Trolling we used Black Barts and Islanders, with a variety of others. All seemed to work. Jigging was best with the good old fashioned diamond jig. Butterfly jigs and glow-in-the-dark stuff didn't do nearly as well. I didn't take a camera so will post pics when some of the others send me copies of theirs.
|
|
|
|
|
Ruby Red Lip
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 10/31/2008 10:23:26 PM
Posts: 44,
Visits: 80
|
|
| Nice report. New to this, can someone post some coordinates of the rigs mentioned? How far out was the blue water? I am going in a week but expect the floods to wreak havoc on the Gulf.
|
|
|
|