Here are some reports from my customers that I unabashedly am borrowing since they tell the story better then I do along with a few extra pics from recent trips.



What’s not to love about Venice? Anyone who loves to fish needs to visit this magical place. We started this trip with the drive early Thursday morning with a planned afternoon departure on our overnight fishing trip with Captain Eddie Burger. I arrive in Venice with much anticipation. Last years trip was amazing, Captain Eddie put us on the Tuna and we had a blast. If this trip is close to last years we are in for a treat. Well everyone shows up, we load the boat, and head south. Once we left the pass we could only make 27 knots in the 2-4 foot seas. We stopped at several floating weed patches only to find huge hard tails for bait. The captain decided we could catch the bait we wanted at the rig and off we went. Once we arrived the bait was running for their life. We caught 40 nice bite size baits and commenced to work on the Dolphin 15-25lbs and caught one Bull that weight 47lbs. After what seemed like an endless sea of dolphin the Tuna bite finally came. First Tuna in the boat a 50lb YFT, and from then on it was a mix of dolphin and Tuna. The Tuna were skyrocketing everywhere, but wouldn’t take our top water plugs. They wanted bait and bait is what they got. We proceeded to catch 7 yellow fins, two in the 90-100lb range. We loaded the fish box, between the dolphin and tuna there was no more room. The captain stated the Swordfish bite is best early evening and that’s all it took. We prepped the boat for the ride.



We headed inshore to find the “spot”. Once we got close we could hear the chatter, another boat was already hooked up. Hope we weren’t late. Captain Eddie is the man…He had already treated us to an amazing day of fishing, but what lies ahead I don’t think he even expected. He sets up the first drift, grabs a rod, and rigs it up with a nice (perfect) squid, sets it out then grabs the second rod to get it ready. If it wasn’t for the redneck bobber we may have never known the fish had bit. We were all poking fun at all the different strobes and colors employed by our Captain when one of the crew says hey the bobber bounced twice and is gone. Sure enough the pink bobber was gone. Not 10 minutes after we arrive we have our first bite. As it turns out it would be our only bite. We all took turns, everyone getting all they wanted and more from this fish. It still wouldn’t give it up. After several trips close to the surface the fish figured out it was hooked. It took the 30 wide, yes 30 wide, down to the spool. That’s when Captain Eddie laid into the fish, turning it with about 100 feet left on the spool. The rotation continued, after this trip to the surface the fish still had fight. After a two and a half hour struggle the Captain finally grabbed the leader and brought the fish to the boat. We stuck that fish with everything we had, gaffs, even a harpoon; it took 4 of us to bring it over the side. Wow, what a fish. It was an incredible battle that wore every one of us out. We were exhausted. We were done. This fish was the icing on the cake for what would be the best damn fishing trip ever. We all hunkered down for the ride back to the dock. After a couple hours of cleaning fish we finally finished with some group photos. Hope you all enjoy the story and the pictures.







I have always heard and read about the great fishing in Venice with Capt. Eddie and can only say that his legacy continues. We had an outstanding trip that is one of those lifetime memories that will make us all smile. Thanks to Capt. Eddie, Josh, and the crew for a great trip…..Now on to the report……..

We launched from Venice Marina at 1:00 pm on Saturday for a 24 hour trip with Capt. Eddie. We went out about 35 miles to catch bait for the yellowfin tuna troll. On the way out we came across a very nice sized whale shark….he was probably close to 20 ft. in length. We then proceeded to a rig to load up on bait. Capt. Eddie was a master at catching bait….<grin>…..he put many hardtails in the livewell. There were many boats in the area and around the time that we finished getting bait, we noticed a few blowups of yellowfin tuna in the area. After a while, the yellowfin tuna were airborne and it steadily became better and better. Boats all around us were catching very nice sized dorado and the tuna were popping out of the water all around the area like popcorn.

Most all of us on the boat were lucky enough to have witnessed one of the most exciting yellowfin tuna events of a lifetime. During a fantastic display of a tuna frenzy, there was an airborne blowup that dropped our jaws. Around eight or ten tuna went airborne at the exact same time in a very tight group that made for an awesome display. There was a very large tuna that jumped around 10 to 15 feet above the water with eight to ten other tuna at lower levels in the air at the same moment that I can best describe as a tuna fish Christmas tree. Altogether we must have seen hundreds of yellowfin tuna jumping into the air while attacking bait fish. The airborne yellowfiin events were absolutely unbelievable!!

We boated two nice sized tuna and a couple of 15 to 20 pound dorado during the first couple of hours of trolling. The tuna were only hitting the live bait on a slow troll and were not very interested in topwater poppers. Scott (bellyup) was able to get a yellowfin on a flying frenzy though….an interesting hookup early into the trip. Bruce was able to catch a nice dorado, about a 20 pounder, on a frenzy flier popper. After a lull period Captain Eddie decided to take us South to a set of rigs. We arrived very close to sunset and noticed numerous blowups near one of the rigs. We caught larger yellowfin, (60 to 90+ pounds), at the rigs while chunking on the drift. It seems that we had at least one hookup on each drift and had quite a few doubles on some of the drifts. With a mixture of blackfin and yellowfin action the fishing was fast and furious. We were on the boat for less that twelve hours, (1pm to midnight), and probably fished for around seven or eight hours. We completely filled the fishbox with fish at midnight and decided to head back to the marina.

The totals were 12 yellowfin tuna (50 to 100 lbs) and 3 dorado (10 to 25 lbs). I caught my personal best yellowfin of 80 pounds.