Category: Fishing Reports

I ran a trip on saturday the 11th for Kerry of Outer Limits charters as part of a big corporate trip. We all like to only post the incredible trips but you have to post the good with the bad and the so-so trips. The weather guessers were calling for a front to come in and push the seas from 2-4 to 4-6 by late afternoon. They were wrong but only by a few hours and a few feet to start out. I got to the marina without a breath of wind so I decided to roll the dice and head to a rig a little over 90NM from the dock. As I cleared the pass things still looked perfect. That is until I hit the first of several bait stops that day. At the first spot I didn’t have a bump now the pressure starts to mount. Hey no problem my next spot is only a few more miles farther offshore and in the same general direction we are headed. But as you guessed it the bait was on vacation as they were at the next three spots. So now I am 35 miles offshore with no livebait to show for my efforts. I didn’t want to make the long run and gamble on the bait  being where I was going to fish. Especialy since the bait was really thick in all the other spots I hit so far. I had to do it so off we went another 40 miles or so to the next bait (hopefully) and tuna spot. The pressure is like a ton of bricks now with no bait in the well. At least some of the pressure was off my shoulders as the next spot the perfect baits came aboard 6 at a time. Perfect right well almost the bait was there but no tuna. My crew got the bean bags back out for another 20 something mile run farter offshore. This rig had been good to me all summer so my confidence was high. Now thing started going my way to a extent. We had two swing and misses just a couple of minutes after the baits went out. Then the rainbow runners found us and were putting a hurting on our bait supply. But the action was as fast as I could get a bait out and it was most of the crews first time offshore. All the activity from the rainbow runners attracted the attention of a lone cow dolphin. Which was Martene’s first dolphin ever. The next bite was the one we were looking for and Kelly made pretty quick work out of a 60-70lb yellow. Now I had the momentum I needed and I put out three baits to double up on the deep line and a flat line. Jimmy got to eat the heart out of a 60-70lb yellow as Kelly did on his first yeelowfin also. The second part of the double was a 30lb fish that was on the deep line Mike managed to keep him out of the other line. And both were soon in the fishbox. I set back up and caught two throw back yellows. And then Mike made the call to head back since they had a charter bus waiting to leave at 5PM. This was the best move made all day. Since the front that was susposed to be on top of us was still not here. And I was ready to go to another rig. But as we left the rig I heard a few radio reports of very slow fishing and with the freshning wind we headed for the marina. The weather played out pretty nice until about the last 15 miles or so then I had to stand up and actualy drive the boat and play captain. But by the time we hit the jetty it was blowing 20-25 knots the river was even choppy. I never thought he weather was that bad offshore. Maybe it was because of the awsome ride of the 33 Freeman. All in all it was a good day no fish were lost due to tackle or angler error so we were batting a thousand right there. We beat the oncoming front in and my crew took the pot for biggest fish they had with the other boats fishing. Capt. Mike

It was nice to finely get back in the saddle after dealing with both Gustave and then Ike. I had Anthony Michael and Jeff Fusilier in from Little Rock. After a few reschedules due to the north part of highway 23 being flooded. We hit a picture perfect weekend the biggest wave we saw all weekend was from a crewboat. On Saturday I made a decision to make a real long run to where I thought we would have the best shot at some decent tuna. A push of barely legal yellowfins came in after the hurricanes, and that is not what I wanted with only two guys onboard. The run out was pretty uneventful we did come across a huge leatherback turtle which Anthony or Jeff has never seen before. We finally got the rig only to find not much going on. But a quick check with the sounder showed some promising marks. Out went the baits it took about 15 minutes to get the first bite was a swing and a miss. The next to bites came pretty quick after that and it was a double header. But neither fish was taking much line at all. Jeff’s fish was taking the most line but still not much. Anthony had a rainbow runner, which went into the box for deep drop bait the next day. Jeff worked his fish to the boat and it was a 30” yellowfin. Not the size of fish I wanted to catch for them but at least the skunk was off the boat. On the next bite the fish was finally taking some line things were looking up. Anthony worked about a 70lb yellow to the boat after some grunting and groaning. After that I started live chumming and we quickly put two more 50-60lb fish in the boat then another 29” fish. We finished up with one more fish at 1:30 and headed to the dock. The fish were all on 60lb fluoro and 6/0 Mustad 39952 circles. One the way in about 30 miles from the pass in nasty peas green water we came across a pod of about 30 or so whales. We were able to get scary close to them we could of scratched their backs. We shot a few pictures and left them to do whatever they were doing. On Sunday I only had Anthony onboard he wanted to try his hand at deep dropping and I was pretty sure that nobody had hit the area I wanted to hit. So with high hopes we set off with a tight time schedule for the trip. We crossed a nice rip and made some bait just in case. About five miles from the rig we came across and pretty big patch of grass. A cast with a popper brought out the green hornets a few freebie livebaits brought out even more. Anthony wanted to take a few of the chicken dolphin home to one of his employees so we put a few in the boat. I glad we had those because at the first rig the only thing I could get to bite was sharks. After losing more rigs and lead than I wanted to we left for my backup rig. Again more sharks but at least we were getting some nice bites when we could hit bottom. I had to use 5lbs to hit the bottom in 750’ just to get past most of the sharks. Finally up comes a decent yellowedge then a couple of nice fish got us in the rig or straightened out hooks. It was time to get Anthony back to the dock so he could get home. But with only a handful of dolphin and one grouper in the boat the schedule got thrown out. And a few more drops were made and few more decent grouper were put in the fishbox. After that we left them biting about an hour later than Anthony’s scheduled time to be at the dock.

This is a report written by Kai Dominick who fished with me on the 27th with family and friends. The goal was to put a few tuna in the box along with a sword. I couldn’t make the tuna bite happen with all of the cudas and wahoo cutoffs. But I was able to make the swords bite. I have found a new bait for mako shark and that is a Yamaha F150 we had a mako do it’s best to chew both lower units off. Enough from me here is the report and pictures will follow later today. Capt. Mike Finally able to sit down and write a report on our tuna/sword trip from last Wednesday out of Venice. Dad flew in from Ohio for a week of fishing out of Freeport and Venice to celebrate his upcoming 68th birthday. Unfortunately, the weather shut us down out of Freeport, but the forecast for Venice looked good, so Dad, Pubguy, and I headed over to Venice for a 13:00 Wednesday departure with Capt. Mike Ellis of Relentless Sport Fishing. Capt Mike had the boat ready to go on time and we pushed off right on schedule, hoping to box some yellow fins prior to sunset. As we hit the river, the prospects looked good – one of the other captains was already back up the river, his day trip having limited out on YFT in a couple of hours. They gave us their left over live bait and told us where they had been. Needless to say, we were getting excited, with Pubguy and I hoping to be fighting our first tunas soon. As we reached the first rig, Dad won the draw and was up first. 2 baits in the water, and couple of minutes later, the reel is screaming. Capt. Mike says ‘cuda as Dad fights, but as the fish comes past the boat, we see a WAHOO. Brief panic ensues as we reach for the gaff and try to bring the fish into range, but he cuts the line and escapes. Another cut off a few minutes later, and we moved on. The rest of the afternoon was, to say the least, slow. We made bait, ran to numerous rigs, but caught nothing but cudas, all released unharmed. As sunset approached, we moved to Capt Mike’s swordfish spot and got set up for our drifts -he said we had a good shot of a strike right at sunset. Sure enough, within about 15 minutes we had a good strike on 1 of our drift lines, but no hook up. Within 30 minute of resetting, we had another strike, and the game was on. Dad harnessed up and started cranking. The fish came right up to the boat after the hook up, then took off. 17 minutes later, we sunk a harpoon in the sword and Dad has his first sword in the boat. 55” lower jaw to tail. The skunk was off… After another missed strike, our next hookup is at 23:30. Pubguy is up, and has the fish boat side within 10 minutes. Again this fish came right to the boat before sounding and putting up his fight. This one was about 44”, so he was released to grow up a little more… Things dragged for the early hours of the morning. As the sky started to lighten in the east, I figured I wasn’t going to get my sword, but Capt Mike said that we had a good shot of another strike at first light. I was, shall we say more than a skeptical. Sunrise came, and we were just about the start pulling in the lines when we had another strike. I’m harnessed up and sure, enough, the fish is coming straight to the boat. We get all the gear off the line and I’m ready for him to head deep, when I see a huge gash in the fish’s left side. In my sleep deprived condition it didn’t dawn on me what was going on for a few seconds – I snapped to right about the time the 8’ Mako took another chunk off my sword at boat side. We shuffle quick, setting out other rods with a sqid and a chuck of sword with a big mullet, but the Mako would only play with them. He spent maybe 15 minutes with us, mauling 1 of the lower units, nosing our baits, but we couldn’t get him to take a bait. As mad as I was about the loss of my sword, I have to admit that that was a way cool scene to experience… The rest of the morning Capt. Mike tried to put us on the Tuna. Dad was up for our first knock down, a barely keeper YFT. Pubguy then got his first tuna, a nice size BFT. I’m still looking for my first tuna… We were back to the dock in Venice around 11:00. All in all, a great trip. I expected to have an easy time loading up on YFT, and thought we’d be lucky to get 1 sword strike. Although a little disappointed on our tuna haul, I’m stoked to have gone 3 for 5 on the swords. Here’s a few pics… -Kai