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Venice 5/8-10th

Posted on by mike

The last few days down in Venice have been good. Altough the weather guesser needs to recalibrate his crystal ball. I started off on Friday with Bridgett Heptner and her son for a pre mothers day trip. The goal was to catch some dolphin and maybe a wahoo. We started out trolling a perfect looking color change with the prettiest swimming ballyhoo but there was no body home in the few miles we fished it. We continued to work our way east and trolled some bouys looking for our dolphin. The snake wahoo took a few of our circle hooked ballyhoo. But we finaly manged to get one snake about three quarters to the boat before something ate him. The first part of the request was partially filled now for the dolphin. We only found one lone cow before we switched over to tuna fishing and caught 4 yellows. The tuna bite was good and we could of caught all we wanted but they had enough so we left them biting.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/039_5.jpg[/img]

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 before they called it quits to go and try for some other species. Of which they eluded us. It was a tough day with lots of lost fish we had plenty of bites it was just that our conversion of bites to fish in the box was way down. Overall not a bad day with 4 yellows and a dolphin and plenty of high and low points.

   The following day I had the Cody Collins gang in for some tuna fishing and with the bite being good the day before. I went to the same spot and partially because it was just to snotty to run any farther out. We started off chunking the fish and the first bait out got eaten while I was going over the technique. Not a bad way to start at all. We then had a couple dry runs. Then we had a few runs with only sharks. But when we found the sweet spot it was doubles and singles and looking like it was going to be an early day. Then we lost two crew members to the effects of the seas. So now it was down to two remaining crew they kept at it while making fun of the two sick ones. Finaly after the seventh yellow hit the ice they decided to take pitty on the sick ones and head back to the dock early. Here is Mica  and Cody with there tuna before the seas took them out.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/043_2.jpg[/img]

  [img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/045_1.jpg[/img]

         

   The next day I had Mitch Johnson and some of his college buddies in to try and catch their first yellowfins. This time the weatherman got it right. Normaly nobody likes the fog but with the thick fog that ment the wind was down and the ride out was going to be good. So on this morning I welcomed it. It was a pleasure to set my throttles and just ride. We got to the bait spot and quickly caught some of the most perfect tinker mackerels I have ever seen. Things were looking pretty good the cudas were only a small nuscience at least for now.   After we filled the well with baits we pulled off the rig and set up on a nice showing of tuna on the sounder at 100’. Only to have the first two baits not make it far from the boat before they were blown up by what should have been tuna. But turned out to be only cudas.  We regrouped and then put the baits out again and then we had 20” yellowfin eating 10-12” baits nit exactly the size we were looking for. The school I was marking finaly decided to eat and we put three yellowfin in the boat as quick as we could.

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     [img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/052_1.jpg[/img]

               It was funny to everyone watching Mitch first get abused by a tuna. Then when it was someone else’s turn suddenly it wasn’t funny anymore. The next bite was Eric’s  and was the last one we would have at that spot and it took just about an hour and several rotations of the rod. Everyone was beat so I finished it off. It wasn’t a monster fish but a good solid 130 or so. It was just a real mean fish. [img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/055_4.jpg[/img]

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              With that fish in the boat they said that they had enough tuna and wanted to try for something different.  The options were put out for the rest of the day and the amberjack option was chosen.  But on the way to catch some jacks I had to pass by one more rig and we still had a well full of bait. We made one more tuna pit stop and immediately caught one a popper and lost a good fish to the cables on the rig. We ended our day with five yellows to 130 and headed for the dock.

 

Capt. Mike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Fishing Reports

Fishing in May is getting good

Posted on by mike

I know I am a little late in getting my report up. But I was trying to edit some of the pictures to protect the innocent and the few people that might get affended by a little nudity. I haven’t got it finished yet so this report will have to have the pictures added in a day or so. On Friday I had Nicole, Brandon and Charlie out for some tuna fishing. They got exactly what they wanted and then some. It was just one of those epic days with a great crew. I can’t believe I even got payed for it. It started off a little bouncy on the way out not to bad. That was the only downside to the entire trip. The bait came very easy with the cudas leaving us alone we quickly put about three dozen tinkers in the well and headed south. As we pulled up to the first spot there was nothing on the surface. But this is where I ended my last trip off with a strong catch so why not start here. The first bait in the rigger was there for about three minutes before it got ate. The second bait never made it to the rigger. The fishing was pretty much a blur. As soon as a fish was gaffed I would hook another bait and throw it out. It would immediately get eaten. There was hardly enough time for tequilla shots. They did get some sloppy half spilled shots in though. At one point I looked back and we had 9 yellows on the deck flopping around. Well 7 were flopping the other two had thier heartd ripped out since it was Brandon and Nicole’s first yellows. Much to the dismay of the crew on the rig we cleaned up the boat and prepared to head to the house at around 12:30. I look forward to fishing that crew again as soon as possible.
The following day I had the Gleason crew in from Georgia. They saw the carnage from the day before so they were pumped up. We had a little diferent luck with the bait we had enough but the cudas were horrible. We had to run from them all day long. The spot from the day before was dead except for the cudas. So a quick move and we picked up one immediately perfect we will now go to work and mow some down. Well we did but they were only cudas. So we just kept moving and moving. We hit just about everything in the gulf. We marked fish at every rig we tried and we caught a pile of undersized blacks and yellows plus way to many cudas. Finaly we were at the point of turning back when we picked up a decent dolphin. That upped the spirits of the crew. I decided to try one more rig and use the last of our bait. Finaly when a reel went off I didn’t just reel in a empty leader and retie a hook. we were finaly on another yellow. The fish decided to bite and we quickly put 4 in the boat up to 80lbs. We were late in the afternoon but persistance paid off and we ended the day with 5 yellows and a dolphin. I had the same crew the following day and with the tuna fishing from the day before and the weather forcast we tried to stick in close but once we left the pass our plans changed. So we regrouped and went to the west and got into calm water so they could drink there beer without holding on. I put out some wahoo baits and they commenced to having a few beers and reeling in all of the 20-40lb jack cravelle they wanted to. There was nothing for the box but they enjoyed it anyway. Sometimes you just have to roll with what is given to you. I will get the pictures put up on here before I go back to Venice on Thursdsay.

Capt. Mike Ellis

 

Posted in Fishing Reports

Venice offshore April 23rd

Posted on by mike

Finaly the wind let up enough to get back offshore. The unfortunate thing is that it just didn’t last long enough as I was only able to get one of my trips off before it started blowing again. Hopefully the wind will give us a break for the rest of the summer. But on Thursday the weather was just about perfect. The only little thing that could be mentioned about the weather was the light fog we had on the way out. I had Tim, Dave and Bryon along with the Pescadora in from Miami on board for a day of tuna fishing. The tuna started to make their presence known while making bait. So after I had a dozen baits in the well I pulled off the rig and set three baits out. I was hoping to make this a one stop trip. And it looked like it was going to be one. As the first three tinkers were converted into yellowfin. The Pescadora caught her first yellowfin and got to taste the heart. So the day was a success since someone caught their first yellowfin. Then the current slowed up and the cudas came out to play after a few of them we went back and made some more bait. At least I had a little cushion on which to start the day with. The next spot would only give us one more yellow before the cudas found us once again. So it was off to the next spot only to find as you guessed it a triple of cudas now the cuda fishing is getting good. At least they were pretty big cudas. I had one more rig to try that I didn’t hit on the way out and it turned out to be all we needed. The first three baits in the water resulted in three bites but only two joined thier buddies in the fishbox. We followed up the double with two more singles and called it a day with a boat limit of yellowfin it’s a nice feeling to leave them biting for another day. The fish were all in the 30-50lb range and were a little outmatched by the Torsa 40/Super Seeker combo. I had 60 mono on the reels, 60 Seaguar fluro and 6/0 Mustad 39952BL hooks. This is pretty much my standard go to outfit for our summertime yellowfin. I should have taken pictures but when it was happening I didn’t even pick up the camera. There was some pictures taken and when they get emailed to me I will add them to this post.

Capt. Mike

Posted in Fishing Reports

March fishing report

Posted on by mike

I know it’s been awhile since my last report. I know I have been slacking on the reports. But now that my daughter is old enough to want hang out with daddy all of my spare time when at home is devoted to her. Just about all of the last several trips have been fishing with the rest of the fleet on a hump out to the east of Venice. Some days it has hard to stay and deal with the multitudes of kingfish and sharks but by the end of the day you would be rewarded with some yellowfin and blackfin in the box. The only good thing about the kings and sharks is that you got to go through your entire stock of hooks and get rid of any slightly rusty ones. Once the kings get real thick we would switch over and cast Braid wahoo bombs at them to pass the time and to restock the bait pile. But the real reason was to get some sweet revenge on them after them taking so many hooks. I have to say that doing that was kind of fun on a 8 to 1 Avet reel with 40lb line on a 6’3” Cape Fear. Most people enjoyed that more than the grind of chunking the tuna. We did have several trips that stood out from the rest of them. The first one that comes to mind is the bachelor party for Derek Fliener and crew. The group was big enough to need two boats so I had Billy Wells run the second part of the group on Wild Bill. Day one started out a little on the bumpy side but not to bad at all. We both started out wahoo fishing only I had no interest in what I was trolling Billy managed to find one. So now with some pressure on me from the bachelor group to not be outdone by Billy. I decided to make a far run to the east to get into undisturbed water. About halfway there I see a fin and yelled out mako and told everyone to hold on and did a 180 as quick as I could. Thankfully I had a couple of kingfish in the box from the day before. So I cut a big chunk of king and drove the boat to the mako but he was making it easy by coming to see what just did a 180 at 40MPH. The mako rig ( 30’ 600lb cable windon to straight 130 Jerry Brown) was quickly put out for the perfect jaws type of hit. It was a quick zip followed by a few clicks followed by her just swimming away slowly until I hit her with the hooks. Dustin was the closest to the rod so he was the one to get the thrill of fighting him.[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Dereks%20b%20party%20021.jpg[/img]

           The fish was fairly tame until close to the end and then he did his best marlin impersonation and tailwalked in a huge circle before giving us a couple of jumps[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Dereks%20b%20party%20086.jpg[/img]

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           . After that I got the flyer in her and a tail rope on the biting end and the tail end[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Dereks%20b%20party%20038.jpg[/img]

         [img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Dereks%20b%20party%20026.jpg[/img]

 

      Now what it was to early to quite fishing but it would be a shame to waste the fish. So we made the call to fish a couple more hours and then head in and weight he mako. We stopped short and tried the hump with only a few kingfish to show for our efforts and with the building seas. We decided to get back on the troll and fish towards the pass. We didn’t get to far before we had a good knockdown on a brown to clean green color change. At first the fish was acting like a real nice wahoo. And my angler was doing a great job on the fish until we saw what we had. As soon as the fish was ID’ed as another mako he kind of freaked out a little.[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Dereks%20b%20party%20065.jpg[/img]

           A call was made to Billy who was fishing the same line as we were. To come and get the rod since we already had a mako onboard. By this time it was rough not just bumpy but flat out rough. You can see how rough it was in the picture.[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Dereks%20b%20party%20084.jpg[/img]

           We successfully handed off the flyer and the rod with the mako hooked to it without incident. [img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Dereks%20b%20party%20078.jpg[/img]

          They fought the fish for about 20 minutes or so and got some jumps out of her before she rolled up in the leader and broke off. Trying to judge her size from the jumps she would of easily been in the 200lb or so range. Back at the dock our make went 302lbs. And filled every ice chest they had.[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Dereks%20b%20party%20110.jpg[/img]

           The next day was just as fun since we had enough meat and the wind was howling we out out west and had a sheephead roundup. I think you could of sunk the boat with them. The fishing was as simple as it gets a 1/2oz jighead with a small piece of shrimp on it. No fluro or anything fancy at all. We had pompano,redfish,Spanish mackerel and red snapper as bycatch.

   The next trip that comes to mind is the Harvey and his girlfriend Nicole trip. The weather was picture perfect of the trip. We started off with a couple of wahoo coming unglued but you could tell it was going to be one of those days so it was no big deal. We got into a area with blackfins showering ballyhoo and a few yellows mixed in. So out went the circle hook rigged ballyhoo and one plug for the stay wahoo. The blackfin loved the ballyhoo and we quickly went through all that I had rigged. [img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/P3130086.jpg[/img]

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          The hookup ratio was pretty good with the circle hooks. I was pretty amazed at how well they swam. I think that if I stopped the boat they would of kept on swimming past us. After the blacks went down we moved over to the hump and started chunking. The first bait was a big kingfish which we put to use as bait instead of a blackfin from out of the fishbox. The very next bait was a real good yellowfin which beat Nichole after a pretty long fight. Harvey stepped in to finish it off. [img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/P3130123.jpg[/img]

          After pictures and a short cleanup we moved back into position for another drift.[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/P3130141.jpg[/img]

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             We had a couple of malfunctions with backlashes when yellowfin ate right at the boat. I was not able to get a one out without breaking off the fish. But our luck changed with Harvey on the next chunk in the water. The yellows came up on a handful of chum and got one of the pieces with a hook in it Harvey whipped the fish pretty quick along with himself also. With all the fish they needed we decided to leave them biting and headed to the house around noon or so. [img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/P3130148.jpg[/img]

         

   The next trip was with the Southern pipe crew this trip was memorable not because of the size of the fish but because they were just fun to fish with. We started off and jigged a limit of Aj’s and then on the the hump to try for some tuna. The blackfin had taken the place of the kingfish we we put a hurtin on them. I don’t know how but two yellows managed to beat the blackfin to the bait. We ended the day early with two yellows a limit of Aj’s and a full box of blackfin. It is nice to know when it’s time to quite killing fish. They threw in the towel just before I was going to mention that they might not have the icechest room to hold the fillets. It was a perfect day back early with the boat and fish cleaned and sitting down to a extra thick steak and cocktail by 5PM.

   The last trip I will mention was my last trip was with the Bradshaw family. The weather was susposed to be on the rough side but the bouy was reading 1.3’ at 4 seconds so the call was made at the dock to try the tuna. Well that was the wrong call I think I should of done some metrological form of math as it was nowhere near the prediction from the bouy. With Ms. Bradshaw out for the count due to the seas so I wasn’t going to go any father offshore. We decided to switch gears and use butterfly jigs to see what would bite. We quickly got a limit of Aj’s using a mixture of different jigs. The OTI jigs and the Shimano’s were neck and neck. But the OTI’s beat them out on price since we lost quite a few of them. Well that is the human wrecking ball A.K.A. Bob did along with a reel. I wouldn’t let him quite I just tied another jig on and told him to drop it. If we made 75 drops I bet we didn’t have 6 drops that came up without a fish. We could never even hit the bottom due to the jacks. We ended the day with everyone having sore arms from the jacks. We lost a few UFO’s we couldn’t stop on 80lb braid and a SevenSeas jigging rod. At the end we had a limit of jacks and a lone blackfin. The fishing is pretty good right now somedays you just have to settle for whatever the weather throws at you.

Capt. Mike

  

 

Posted in Fishing Reports

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