May Madness: Fast-Paced Tuna Action and the Thrill of Live Bait Fishing!

Been WIDE OPEN as we move into May. Fast pace fishing with live bait has been the name of the game for the tuna. 

A sunrise departure from Venice Marina makes for a beautiful ride down the Mississippi River. Live pogies have been the weapon of choice… we net a couple of wells full and take off!  Once we arrive at the oil rig we have been hooking them as fast as you can zip a bait out. Multiple rods bent and screaming drag. It’s really something to see! We expect the fishing to be red hot through the summer as red snapper season approaches in June.

Tuna, Wahoo, and Swordfish

Along with the big tuna and wahoo we have found the swordfish bite to get red hot this time of  year. Like everything else, they are typically big! A plus sized swordfish will give any fish we catch a run for it’s money. We hook them in deep water and they will often shoot straight to the surface, jump, then head back to the bottom just as fast. They are a force to be reckoned with!

Big Fish are here!

2021 has already started strong. We have checked multiple species off the list in the first month of fishing including big tuna, wahoo, swordfish, and even a mako shark. As we move into February the lump is beginning to fire off which has been a big producer over the past couple of years. Last February and March we saw the best fishing Venice has probably ever seen. With all the big tuna around we expect more of the same this year! These big fish should be around until the end of March.

A New Decade

January, 2020… Another Decade in the books! Around 7:00 am on January 1st we boxed a 60lb Wahoo with our first pass around a rig and it has been on fire ever since. We have had an abundance of them around as of late and they have not been shy. On top of incredible Wahoo fishing the tuna bite has continued to be lights out! With February approaching the big Yellowfin should be moving from the offshore baitballs and congregating on the lumps that made Venice famous. With the amount of giants we have been seeing in the area, this year should be one for the books. Big Yellowfin with a side of Wahoo… who doesn’t like the sound of that?!

Winter Time Is Upon Us

As November comes to a close and we approach the end of the year, the big yellowfin continue to stick around in large numbers. We are seeing fish ranging anywhere from schoolies to upwards of 200lbs! These big fish should be around through March with the cooler temperatures pushing bait offshore. We have seen a lot of bait balls popping up already with a mixture of sharks, bonitas, blackfins, and giant yellowfin feeding on them. It is quite a sight to behold! It won’t be long before we start to see the wahoo schooling around the rigs. They are known for their big runs at drag screaming speeds. Winter time is upon us, folks, and it’s looking like it is going to be a great one!  


The Wahoo Bite Springs to Life

Spring is here, folks, and Venice is the place to be for outrageous offshore action aboard Relentless Sportfishing! Not only is the Yellowfin Tuna bite on fire but we’re burning up drags with Wahoo and going through plenty of filet knives cleaning Swordfish. NOW is the time to book your epic fishing adventure if you want to fish with us in March or April!

Everybody Yell “Wahoo!”

Normally, we’re all about the Tunas when fishing out of world-famous Venice, Louisiana. However, our clients have been screaming “Wahoo!” when we’re fishing around the oil rigs well offshore. That’s because some stud Wahoo have been abusing our trolled artificials as we scout for Tunas. As you can see above, these are no “weehoos.” These are fully-grown toothy critters that just love to melt drags and break hearts. If you book with us in March or early April, you can go toe-to-toe with one of the fastest species in the Gulf. Period.

Green Light on Yellowfins

Our fishery is best known for monster Yellowfin Tunas and they refuse to be upstaged by the red-hot Wahoo bite. We’ve been finding huge Yellowfins outside of 30 miles and they simply cannot refuse the live mullet, live hardtails or even the specially-crafted chunks that we’re pitching to them. As you can see, we’ve had no problems getting our clients to tangle with these butterballs, with the Yellowfins ranging from 60 lbs to 100 lbs and even larger. As if these giants weren’t enough action, there are large numbers of Blackfin Tuna mixed in with the Yellowfins and the Blackfins are averaging a respectable 20 lbs to 30 lbs themselves. If you’re lucky, they can get even bigger!

Daytime Swordfish Too

Recently, the Yellowfin bite has been so good that our clients have been catching their fill of Tunas early into our trips. We can’t just head back in. So, we’ve been daytime dropping down for Swordfish in depths exceeding 1,800 feet. Swordfishing is truly an amazing endeavor and takes a fair amount of skill and seamanship to keep the bait on target and know when a Swordfish is hooked up. Fortunately, our Relentless Sportfishing Team includes captains who make “daytiming” look easy! This kind of fishing really needs to be experienced to be believed. Call us to book your trip! Another option for our clients has been deep dropping on a few of our “honey holes” for yet more tasty species like Snapper, Grouper and even Golden Tilefish. Check out this big Tile! So, you can see that none of our Relentless Sportfishing clients are going home hungry. We are sending our clients home with enough fish to feed a city block!  Let’s get out there in comfort and safety in our 36′ Yellowfin center console. You won’t have much time to relax as we get you to the fishing grounds in a hurry courtesy of our triple outboards. You will feel like you are on rails. Isn’t it time that you got in on the action before the Spring patterns give way to Summer? What are you waiting for? Come be our guest as we introduce you to one of the world’s premier fisheries for the angling experience of a lifetime! Tight Lines Captain Neil  & Captain Joey

The 2019 Season In Venice Is On!

Happy New Year to you and your family.  We had quite the year and we are thankful for everyone that chose Relentless Sportfishing. We look forward to fishing with a lot of our repeat customers this year and putting them on trophy tuna, swordfish and more! January has started out great with some big fish coming over the gunnels. While each day is different, one thing has been consistent: the fish are big!  Using a variety of methods we are racing out to the fishing grounds in search of feeding tuna.  The birds, shrimp boats, oil rigs, rips, etc have all been good indications of where the fish have been holding, however the best indicator has been your captain.  By fishing daily, we generally know where to find the fish from the day before.  This is a huge advantage over the “part-time” fleet. Using our years of logs and time on the water has been our key to success and finding the big fish has been our specialty.  We are so happy our customers are not only experiencing Venice Louisiana fishing, but they are getting to experience some of the best fishing around here in 10 years. Here in January, we already fished 2 bachelor parties as well as 1 corporate event and several private parties.  Each group has done a great job reeling in these beast. I am hoping the weather holds this winter season for all our clients on the calendar already as I expect the fishing to continue to be very good! Here are a few pictures from our Offshore trips: As we get deeper into our Winter and approach spring, we will be looking for Wahoo as well.  Last year the Wahoo season was pretty good.  It is nice to slay the tuna and then switch gears to catch some of the biggest wahoo in the country. If you are looking to go fishing in Venice, LA – we still have several dates available through the end of the spring. Please give us a call and we will get you out there! Tight Lines Captain Niel

Experience Venice Tuna Fishing

“Well, my wife has wanted to do a night in New Orleans for a while. A few months ago I floated the idea of a nice meal there, a casual drive down to Venice the following day and then a tuna trip. Surprisingly enough, she took the bait. Don’t get me wrong, she loves to fish, but it was awesome to think that she was willing to let us spend that kind of expense and time away from home when it essentially revolved around fishing.

Rolled into NOLA around 4:30 on Thursday afternoon and walked around a bit having a drink here and there while waiting on our dinner reservations at Herbsaint and for our friend to fly in from Fort Worth. He got in around 7:30 and we made our dinner reservation just in time. Great meal. I had the musgovey duck leg, which was divine; only complaint is that I could have eaten about 8 of them… fat boys like their food.

Woke up the next day and made our way down to Venice. Got there at the exact same time that another angler did who had driven straight form PC. We got all situated on house boat and had plenty of time to watch some fish come in, have a few drinks, grill some steaks and talk about the day tocome. Next day came quickly. Here’s Mike’s new 36 Yellowfin at Cypress Cove. Venice Marina Within no time we had drinks / food loaded, truck parked and we were making our way down the river. Yellowfin Venice Fishing Boat In the picture above we are about to be into open water and ready to net some bait. We saw a few popping out here and there, but not enough to toss on. Rather than spending time (and shoulder ligaments) tossing on onsies and twosies, Mike kept easing down a particular shoal and we found them a good bit thicker maybe 30 minutes later. Two casts and we had probably 80 pogies in the barrel. Time to go fishing!

Live baits, great conditions and we’re ready! Venice Fishing Charters We ran about 30 nm and in no time we have our first customer! Birthday girl on the rod… Venice Fishing Oil Rigs She made short work of an average sized late-May / June fish and in no time it was on deck…. Venice LA Yellowfin Tuna On Deck We all high fived and Mike pulled out the heart offered her a bite after her first tuna. She willingly took a chomp out, but didn’t chew for long. Unfortunately, I don’t yet have the picture of this scene, or the one with a nice first-kill swipe of blood across her faith.

After that, we put one line back out and not long after that we caught another similarly sized fish on a live bait. Buddy from TX whooped him pretty quick and we tossed this guy on ice. Yellowfin Tuna In Box After this, we had a little lull, but not much of one. Yours truly wanted to make a move, but we were marking fish above 200’ and Mike said let’s stay put. Most folks were up front chilling on the rail when I saw a fish bust within 100’ off to port. I ran forward grabbed the popper rod and hooked one up on first cast….

Me on the popper rod… Hooked Up In Venice On Oil Rigs Popper fish in box… Fish In The Box After this our next fish came on a live bait and it was solid… About to come over the rail… Yellowfin Tuna On The Gaff Wife with a hero shot… And CLEARLY best picture of the trip! Big yellowfin Tuna! Same fish… Yellowfin Tuna Me with the fish… Yellowfin Tuna After this we hooked up on a double. The larger of the two fish hit first (crashed a slow trolled live bait) and then a second rod went off fishing same thing. I hopped on the smaller fish and boated it fairly quickly. We were then sitting on 6 fish. After a good fight (and a little bit of embarrassing rod-passing) we boated another real nice fish. This made 7 nice tunas and bonus fish number 2. We messed around for another 35 minutes or so and headed home. In that 35 minutes I had a fish boil on a popper and we watched another boat put a 35-30 pound fish in. We probably could have soaked out another fish or two, but we had 5 average fish and two real nice ones given the time of the year. That being said, we elected to take Mike’s advice and head for the hill. 

The second bonus-fish… Venice Fishing Same fish with fella from Texas… Tuna Capital Of The World After this, we scrubbed the boat real quick and headed that way with a cold beer in hand. What a day! It might have been 11:00 at this point. We had two folks on board that were up for poking around for another fish or two, but as a whole we were all fine with heading on in.
Iced fish about to get the slurry! Tuna In The Box While out there we watched two or three fish miss live baits, but not once did we one bend a rod or peel line and miss. IMO, we went 7 for 7 with only two sharks. Fantastic!

Headed in… Ugly, boat, huh? The Ride Back Picture of ugly tackle with sun at about high noon… Yellowfin Tuna Back at Cypress Cove… we couldn’t find a cart, so I sprayed the dock down for a few minutes and let them lay long enough for a picture with my wife. We could have done better here, but I was in a hurry to get some ice back on them before we made our way to the cleaning table. Yellowfin At The Dock Again, no hand cart, so in the truck they went! Keep in mind, we had bed liner nice and cool and dumped plenty of ice on them. They stayed like this for no more than 5 minutes, and then we had them in a cart with ice all over them. Yellowfin Tuna Venice Fishing charters One more look at them… Venice Fishing Charters For Tuna If you ever go battle with 80+ pound tuna you have a few choices. 1. Learn proper form. 2. Don’t drink beer for two days prior in NOLA and marina. 3. Bring a guy like the one pictured below. Yeah, he did a lot of pumping and winding: Tuna Also got to see a 297 warsaw at the dock… or at least it’s carcass… Warsaw Grouper Since getting home we’ve been eating pretty well: Fresh Tuna Sushi and Edamame Tuna, avocado BLT…. Start here…Yellowfin Tuna Finish here… Burgers A little poke. This… Vacuum Sealed Tuna Into this… Fresh Tuna With Soy Sauce With what’s left over you try to eat…Tuna Steaks   Great stuff!

Can’t wait to get back! Hard to go wrong in South LA when you have great weather and a great captain!

All Big Fish!

We are finishing up a string of trips. And looking forward to a day of downtime. Tomorrow, to do boat maintenance. The fishing has been ok ,but the numbers are down some. But the ones.We are targeting are all in the 100 to 160 range. Chaz had the biggest today at 118 and a bunch of snapper. I had a 109 and snapper and Ed had a good one, but didnt get the size. Venice Fishing Charters  

The Perfect Day In Venice, La

Today was the perfect day. I had a great family in from Chicago that wanted a day of catching. They got more than they wanted. We doubled up on yellowfin right off the bat. Which set the tone of the day. Now for the upside/downside of the day. The next double was two jumbo yellowfin. The girls wanted no part of them so it was up Jeff and I. As luck would have it the smaller of the two pulled the hook. Ok no problem let’s work in the other one. We got him to the boat but he made a last ditch effort and made a run and broke us off. Everyone got to see him he was a solid 150 plus. So after that it was on to the snapper hole for a quick limit. 13315569_1060371784008602_2163913151773482118_n
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