[captain william wall]

October is here and in full force. The cooler temperatures are just a prelude of good things to come. Hunting season will soon be here, Football season has kicked off and giant yellow fin have made their way here off the coast of Venice. Our shrimp boat season kicked off about three weeks ago and it seems to be getting better by the day with each passing cool front and water temps cooler down. The size of the fish seem to be varying from smaller school size fish in the 60lb range to fish up to and over 200lbs, which in my opinion is good because it shows a healthy balance in the population. Fish seem to be biting everywhere, floaters and on the shelf. The blackfin are just about as thick as they can be and are the jumbo models. 15-30lbs. My beloved wahoo have made their presence known in the past week and a half. I have been pulling x-raps and live baiting them with hardtails. Watching the rod double over on the troll is cool but there is no substitution for a wahoo clobbering a hardtail on the surface. As we go into the next few weeks the fishing will do nothing but get better. The river is low and green in all of the passes. Once the river temperature gets 67 degrees the speckle trout and every other species of fish that can live in brackish water will invade the river and its diversions. Offering some of the easiest inshore fishing there is. The mullet should be making their way offshore and once they do, it will make for some awesome visuals with big yellow fin beating the brakes off of them. This is the season of plenty for sure. Last week I had the pleasure of hosting a super cool group of guys from all over the country for the first annual Chris Hacker birthday bash. We had Chris, who is the co-owner of titan tackle along with his partner Brian Brewer and Brice, Owner of OTI, just to name a few. Tuesday night most of the gang arrived and after a few cocktails and a lot of smack talking, the guys retired for the next day. Had two boats running, myself and Capt. Josh B, of Intensity offshore, this was to be a fun day with the tournament starting the next day. Capt. Josh opted for floaters and I went looking for wahoo. It didn’t take long before we found them. We ended up going 7 for 12. Once they slowed down on the troll, we slowed down and live baited them. Capt. Josh finished his day with 3 nice yellow fins, a limit of jacks and all the blacks you could stand. That night we treated the guys to a crab boil and the rest of the gang arrived. 4:45 came a little too early due to a semi late night party on the deck of the houseboat. Had three boats running this morning, Capt. Eddie Vangordon joined in to fish the rest of the group, a friendly was placed on the biggest tuna for the next two days. We loaded the boats and headed out. Ignoring the early morning smack talk, we eased out of the marina in the pre-dawn darkness with expectations of a good day. We made about 30 miles offshore and I couldn’t stand it, had to try for a few minutes on the wahoo. First pass we doubled up and landed both of them. All right, done with that, Capt. Eddie had moved further west of me and was already on a shrimp boat, and shortly after came on the radio and said that they had boated a 130lb yellow. Rut-rough! We made our way over and were covered up with blacks. Boxed a few of them and Brian even a cobia on a top water, Go figure! We stuck around a little more and Capt. Eddied hooked up again. [email protected]##$#@ Time to roll! I was behind the 8 ball and needed to make something happen. I made my way back east and found what I was looking for. Thanks to the kindness and generosity of a friendly Asian shrimp boat dude, we picked up 150lbs of by-catch. Sweet! We started pouring the chum and shortly after a nice fish rolls up twice. Brad hooks up and in about 7 minutes we put a 130lb fish in the box. Not long after, Capt. Josh B. calls me and says he is heading north with two studs. I knew I had to get a bigger fish for sure. Noting the confidence in Josh’s voice, we kept at it going into the afternoon. Next boat and a nice fish in the 160lb range comes rolling thru the slick at least five times. He was eating everything but a hook. At one point I think he shot me the bird! It was getting late and we were running desperately low on chum. I spotted one more boat in a little shallow and we headed toward him. Set up and immediately the blacks were everywhere. I hooked one up and just about had him to the surface when I looked down and Mr. Big rolled up and ate a piece of chum almost two inches from the boat. Battle stations! I think we had two pieces of chum left at this point. I pinned a large ribbon fish on and he ate it boatside but no hook-up. He just had the end. !#@%$&#@! We scurried around in a frantic panic and scrounged up a few croakers, some bits of bonita, cheese crackers and I think a piece of beef jerky and threw it over. My deckhand Mitch was ready with a roast size chunk of red meat. He came up once again and ate the chunk. Yes! Tad was up and a little over an hour later, we stuck two gaffs in a large and long yellow fin. We arrived back at the marina about 6:30. He would weigh 194lbs and was 69 inches. Too bad he didn’t carry his weight all the way to his tail, or he would’ve been a lot bigger. Capt. Josh’s fish went 148 and 176. Captain Eddie’s went 108 and 121. Pretty good day, the next day we were feeling pretty good about our fish holding up and it did. That night we treated the guys to roast suckling pig and all the fixings. Brice had nice OtI tackle goody bags for everyone as well as Titan Tackle goodies courtesy of Chris and Brian. We spent the evening toasting cock-tails and three good days of fishing. We expect to experience solid fishing all the way thru November. Please give me a call to book your next trip in Venice. Thanks.
Captain William Wall
Pelagic Charters
Venice, La
Pelagicchartersllc.com