Venice Offshore- Fish R.I.P.

[customcat]

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Just wrapping up a string of trips in Venice and all I can say is the fishing remains to be "off the hook!" I started out last friday on the 13th with high hopes despite the date being the title of a stupid horror movie. I had Gary Borden and the boy's from texas. I started off the day looking for wahoo but no love was to had. Pulling the hooks on two, I decided to do a little grouper fishing before heading off to the tuna grounds. In a very short time we iced six beautiful scamps on williamson jigs and released a "ENDANGERED AMERICAN RED SNAPPER" that would have fed 10 people back to the mother ocean! After that we moved on with the day and started tuna fishing. In no time our slick looked like an aquarium! It's still so cool to look over in cobalt blue water and see large hammerheads, bonita's, blackfin tuna, kings, yellows, etc. Something that I have noticed over the past few weeks tuna fishing, is that there is definitely a pecking order when it comes to dinner time. Bonita's, kings and blackfin dart in very quick, taking what they can without becoming a target of a larger predator. Once the yellowfin and larger sharks show, all of the smaller mentioned fish move aside and below only taking the smaller scaps that sink. Back to the fishing. The bite started off with the usual loose 25 hooks to the kings and after that we began to hook up with x-tra large blackfin. We had boxed seven in a row, when a very nice yellow showed in the slick. That fish must have been hungry or dumb because he took the first chunk in the water. A short while later guest deckie, "chopper" sank the gaff in a nice 100lb puls yellow. We reset our drift and another yellow, only this one was bigger, showed up immediatley. After a little bait and switch we hooked him up. This fish had alot of fight to him. He stayed on the surface for the first 30min. and after that he went straight down and out. 45 minutes later we sunk the gaffs in a nice fish that we called around 130lbs. I was gutting the tuna when something didn't feel right in his stomach. Out pops a tracking device that was implanted by Capt. Kevin Beach at an earlier date that I will soon find out along with his weight at the time. Pretty cool stuff. Saturday I had Mark Dixon along with two of his firends. I went straight to the "sweet spot" and upon arrival, mark's friends began changing colors like the predator in the jungle scene. Well, we put them to bed in the bean bags and started fishing. I started chunking and mark was amazed by the amount of sea life. He has spent alot of time fishing just not alot of time offshore. We weeded thru the kings and got a solid hook-up which turned out to be a solid 50lb hoo on a circle hook and floro. After that we went on catching several big blacks and a small yellow. Later that afternoon a large yellow showed in the slick and we hooked him up right off the bat. Mark was doing a great job fighting this fish for about an hour. We had the fish near the boat but after an angler error that I politely call the high stick move, The tuna was able to make a strong head shake breaking the 80lb floro. That fish was 150 plus! Despite loosing the fish, marks spirits were high and he was ready to go again. We reset and on que another fish slightly bigger showed. This fish proved to be picky only taking chunks without the steel. I down sized twice on the floro in an effort to make him eat but with no luck. I continued to feed him just to watch and was leaning over the gunnels washing my hands and looking at this stud taking chunks ten feet below my boat when something caught the corner of my eye. I looked over and a mako was four feet from me and my hands, which were still in the water! With only one able angler I made the decision to leave him alone. I called over to my buddy Capt. Rimmer and told him get over here now. We feed the mako and the damn tuna and Rimmer pulled up right next to me and hooked the mako up. Later that night that mako weighed 298lbs. Interesting to say the least. Monday I had Buster Cases and his two buddies. That morning the fog in the river was very bad! I tip-toed down river and once we left south pass the fog cleared giving way to smooth seas and the sun shining. Those conditions would later prove to be the calm before something real ugly. We started off wahoo fishing and in about 5 seconds of pulling we were hooked up. One large blackfin to start the day. In the next forty five minutes we went 1 for 8 on wahoo. One fish broke the hook on a braid marauder in half! right in the curve of the hook! Another fish took a 111mr mirrorlure and made it look as if you slammed it in the door of your truck. Hummm. All the while, the seas are calm and we went on to do a little jigging before going tuna fishing. We had boxed seven large scamps and one aj on the jigs when a very cold wind came from no-where. In about enough time to make a sandwich the sky tuned balck and a 30knt plus wind turned the seas into a washing machine. I opted for the barn along with the rest of the fleet. On Wednesday I had Richard Tauber and his son in from Houston. With a short time to fish due to a early flight we started the day tuna fishing. The first bait in the water was taken by a wahoo. Luck struck again and we landed him on 80lb floro and a circle hook. After that almost every chunk was taken by some sort of fish. Right at lunch time we took a box count and we had 2 yellows, 7 blacks, 1 wahoo, and 1 amberjack. We left the tuna grounds and tried our luck jigging for a few minutes before we had to roll. Thirty min. later we had two scamps. The larger of the two around 20lbs. Mr. Richard was on the road with fish cleaned and packed with time to spare headed for the airport in N.O. On Friday I had Robert Dixon along with his lady friend Mrs. Kristy. After clearing south pass I was clipping along at 38 but the closer we got to the tuna grounds the rougher it got. By the time we completed the last 10 miles we were only able to make 18knts! Despite the sea conditions, drifting was not bad at all. I stated off with instructions on chunking and in no time we were putting fish in the boat. The Yellows were defintely hungry as we picked up four in a short period of time along with two blacks and a very confused amberjack that came to the surface eating chum. Not one to pass up an opportunity, we had another wahoo come thru the slick and he made the mistake of eating two chunks with hooks. We landed that fish on floro and a circle hook! Third time in a week! After that we landed a nice fish in the 50lb class and the last fish of the day to comlete a two person limit of yellow was a nice 90lb fish. Both Robert nor his girlfriend had ever caught a yellowfin and were all smiles. We rolled back to dock in following seas and cool tunes. They left Venice with more than enough tuna and memories of a fishing trip that they won't soon forget. The fishing in the last week has been great to say the least. I can't quite say that for the weather. With spring being upon us, the tree's are in bloom and so is the fishing. Give me a call to book your next offshore adventure in Venice.
Captain William Wall
Pelagic Charters
1.225.454.5365

[Bert Rodgers]

Outstanding report Capt. Keep them coming.

Bert

[SeaBiscuit]

Excellent report and pictures as usual captain Wall.
If you don't mind me asking how deep do you usually jig for your scamps? Surprised to see your grouper catch so "clean". Aren't there gags and red where these scamps hang out?
Cheers,
SeaBiscuit

[customcat]

I normally concentrate for scamps around the 250' mark. The normal "BY-CATCH" will always be there. I have had good luck in releasing large snapper. The gags 99.9% of the time will swim straight back down. April 1rst the gags are going to have a problem. The scamps that we have been catching are right on the bottom.

[Captain Fred Archer]

Cappy William,

Thank you for the as usual, excellent report. You guys have a pure, world-class fishery down there, no doubt about it, and it's right here in the good, old USA and in that great cajun country to boot. Great combination, that.

I have a question, if you don't mind. Your batting average on not getting bit off by wahoo on chunks fished on circle hooks on mono looks like it's very good, indeed. I am a wahoo nut and a half and nearly always fish them on short, single strand wire leaders. But I did some experimenting with the circles on mono down in Cabo, both on trolling lures - especially what we call "WahooBars" and bait - and we had a very good "no bite offs" result. This included a few over a buck and as you know, ones that size have massive heads and mouths and you'd think they'd clip mono leaders in a heartbeat, but they didn't. So my question is, has this no wahoo bite offs thing been consistent with you, or was last week different? I know you're busy, but if you could find the time to answer this, I sure would appreciate it.

And chunks? For wahoo? Nah, wahoo only go for trolling stuff, right? Chunking is only for tuna, right? No? You betcha! I love reading about your chunking exploits!

We do some things with swimming plugs that might interest you. The one called "Dacron Hammers" skyrockets the hookup and landing ratios for Marauders and we actually run the lipped models with circle hooks for the same reason. I'm pretty sure that both are on my website, if you'd like to see them. We fish straight mono-to-wire on the Mirrolures, etc.

Okay, I've taken up enough of your time. Like I said, I love 'em and thank you for them.

Here are a couple of very low cost, but very effective fast and high speed wahoo lures from the book. And I love to draw them too. That's "Wolf Pack" on the book cover.

Website www.fredarchersworldoffishing.com

[customcat]

We loose alot of circle hooks this time of year due to toothy critters. We are going thru 50-100 hooks a day depending on the amount of kings, sharks and wahoo. Catching one on 80lb floro chunking for tuna is pretty lucky. We are targeting tuna and as you know wahoo will eat chunks just as quick as a tuna. I have had them in my slick just sitting there picking away at the pieces of tuna, menhaden or whatever you use. When we are fishing for wahoo the game changes. Single strand wire for stretch and marauders as well as islanders with ballyhoo springs. I use heavy flex cable on my high speed set-ups. Thay are similar to the diagram you showed me. I make my own and prefer a double hook rig. Mustad 7691s 9/0-10/0 depending on the size of the lure. Normally I use a island cruiser. Nice cover on your book captain.

[weekender]

awesome report with great detail, thanks for taking the time to share with us.

[austin ensor]

nice pics......

[Captain Fred Archer]

Cappy William,

Thanks for the reply. So much for circles on chunks. They do work great on lures, though, especially Super and WahooBars, but of course I learned that when I didn't know that there were wahoo around (so they could show me that I didn't know as much as I thought I did and was running mono chasebait leaders). I wound up just running wire all of the time and never looked back. Didn't seem to bother the other lure fish at all.

And we didn't have king macks around, thank goodness! They sure can be hell on leader! We did have a fish we called "Sierra mackerel", which were like big Spanish up to eighteen pounds or so. The good thing was that we caught the biggest ones on the 20 line and up to the 100, which was right where many of our wahoo were, so we were wired up for them. Great eating, by-the-way, especially ceviche. Munching on some smoked as I write this.

I'm a single strand guy. Can't stand cable, although I respect those who do. Using it nearly every day (lot's of charters, very short runs to the fish, lots of trolling time and catching), I came to hate those little strands that sprung out of it (for me, at least) in time and with a lot of use, and it was a helluva lot more expensive than single strand, very important in my charter business. Heck, I used to take it off of my new downriggers and replace it with Dacron, so I had plenty of it laying around. I guess I'm also bad at rigging it too, something I hate to admit, but could be.

Good on ya on that Poor Man's High Speed lure. As I'm sure that you know (and few do), it works like a champ and is vastly less expensive than the typical hi speed lure - again, very good for charterboat captains. I like that Pro Squid shown in the drawing as a high speed squid most of all. It's tough as nails and goes like hell because of its shape. It's eight and a half inches long. I am including a pict of what we call The Poor BOY's High Speed Wahoo lure, which murdered them when they were on small bait. The small bulk of the little hollow squid gets rid of the need for a heavy trolling sinker. And man, that makes it REALLY inexpensive to make!

We don't sell these high speed rigs, but we show folks how to make and rig them and a lot of other lures, wind-on leaders and other stuff in the books.

I move the hook way to the rear for fast-to-high speed fishing. After having been hooked to a big blue marlin while leadering her years ago and being incredibly lucky that she didn't pull me over and drown me, but not after I tore the 12/0 out Sea Demon hook rigged on aircraft cable that was completely punched through the back of the heavy leadering glove and the back of my hand and completely out the palm (man, it hurts to just write about that!), I banned double hook rigs on my boat forever. I will never forget that. I literally tore the hook through my palm and out between two of my fingers! Yaargh!

A wahoo on a Picante boat down in Cabo that had a 'hoo drive one of a double hook rig way into the thigh and very close to the femoral artery of a mate, then bit him while he was trying to grab the rig and stop the ripping that it was doing to him and then the second hook came out and got him in the hand too, sealed the deal for me. By the time that they roared back into their slip the 'pit was full of blood, the mate was deeply in shock, and that hook was so close to the artery that the paramedics refused to move him until a surgeon arrived and told them they could do it without the artery getting cut. The guy almost died and never fished again. That was the second Picante mate (and they are very good ones, in spite of this happening) who got hooked up to a double rig by a wahoo in a week. All that I can say is, please be careful! And add that our hookup and landing ratios were excellent, something that I kept track of and logged daily.

Yes, we both know about wahoo and chunks, but that's another thing that isn't common knowledge. I have seen an underwater video of them coming up a chunk line swimming slowly and slurping down chunks like goldfish eating bread. There was a thread about daytime chunking on the site not long ago. It seemed to surprise many that daytime chunking works well, so all that I did was say that it surely does, along with some others. I thought about mentioning the wahoos, but some seemed doubtful about the daytime tuna thing, so I decided not to mention the 'hoos...people around here think I'm nuts enough already without making it any worse, LOL!

And besides, I'd be bound to hear that "It won't work here" bullshit that comes from some who will have never tried it and probably never will, or who will write off bite offs to sharks, not wahoo. I come too close to saying what I really think when I read that stuff.

That WahooBar trolls great at all speeds, including going like a bat outta hell, and it catches wahoo and everything else but little dolphin, which can't catch it, but the big ones sure can and little tunas have no problem catching it. The best part for me and my passengers was that every strike is a surface one and that can get pretty spectacular when it comes to the 'hoos.

Thank you for the kind words on the book cover. Means a lot coming from an expert like you.

Website www.fredarchersworldoffishing.com