Captain's Journal

The fishing over the last week has been a roller coaster to say the least. I started out on the 17^th with Jonathon and crew from Monroe the call was for an easy and early day. The mangroves and reds were our target for the day. The reds were as easy as they could be the mangroves were there also but they were a lot tougher to catch but we managed to get a decent box of them. We had to drop to 30lb fluro to get bit and that made it tough to convert bites to fish but we still came out on top.

  The following day I had Steve Wheelis along with Rick,Matt and Chris. The first order of the day was the right bait. We spent the better part of the morning running around looking for it. But we finaly tracked down the threadfin and put a few dozen in the well. I know there were thoughts of mutiny among the crew. I kept reassuring them it was worth it. Well the decision turned out to be the right one. We pulled up to our destination and out  three threadfin. They lasted about two minutes before we had a triple on. As soon as one fish was gaffed I would unhook it and hook another bait on and throw it out and within 30 seconds or so we would have another. This went on until we had seven yellows on the deck. And a whole lot of sweat from my crew but they handled things very well. We lost no fish and only had one cross up that was easily fixed. After boxing and doing a quick clean up I put baits back out to finish off the boat limit. The bite had slowed down some which was a welcome relief. The next fish to come calling was a sailfish and matt’s first billfish. I set the baits out again only to double up on yellowfin and give us our boat limit plus one. The rigging on this day was Mustad 39952 6/0’s 60 fluro , 60lb main line on the Torsa’s with the drag at 18lbs. We finished the day with 9 yellows and a limit of snapper. I have no pictures until Steve sends them to me. I didn’t have any time to take any with it being such a fast bite.

  The next group was the Mark Shellem group in from Georgia. I have had to reschedule this trip from the winter and needed to show them a good trip. Mark was on the dock when we got in and saw what Steve Wheelis had caught and was pumped up. We did the same drill and caught the ever elusive threadfins. We arrived to find a boat show but we had the magic baits and put them to work. I am going to cheat and cut and paste the report Mark put up on another website. It’s nice to get the report from a different prespective.

Relentless Sport Fishing, Capt. Mike Ellis, WOW!!

What a trip !! Went offshore with Capt. Mike Ellis last Friday out off Venice La. and had one heck of a trip! 5 yellowfin and a limit of red snapper. If anyone would like to go on a quality offshore trip, this is the man! Went 55 miles out and ran into a parking lot. Mostly had to do with the news that the day before, Capt. Mike’s clients had brought in 9 yellowfin and everybody wanted to get in on the action. Didn’t take long until only a handful of boats were left out there because only a couple of boats were actually putting tuna in the boat. Ours of course was 1 of them! If you want to go down and lay up drinking, I would not waste your or the Capt.’s time, but if you would like to go on a serious fishing trip, and have the time of your life, you should hook up with this Capt. Serious about his fishing and a no nonsense skipper, you still have a great time and a lot of fun. His boat is a fishing machine and when you leave the bait area for the ride out, go ahead try to settle in a very comfortable bean bag for the ride out. First class operation, from his recommendation of Fin and Feathers Cabins, thru his set up and the marina. Thanks Capt. Mike!! I’ll try and post some pictures later.

Here is Mark with his first yellowfin along with some of the pictures from the trip.

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   I tried for a three peat the next day only to have the very few and valuable threadfin die on the way to our destination. We had only three baits alive when I pulled the throttles back.  I put them out and we had a sailfish come up and take on. Now down to two not so alive baits and no tuna marking we shifted gears and went inside and caught our limit of nice amberjacks and red snapper. Not what my group wanted but sometimes you just have to make the best out of what you are given.    

  On Sunday I had Travis Leiva and crew out for what turned out to be a gulf buffet. We hit the snapper spot on the way out and quickly caught our 12 from there we tried our hand at tuna fishing but only found a single blackfin that wanted to play. So we switched gears and chased down some dolphin and a wahoo. Of all species to let us down the amberjack was not the one I thought would but they did on this day. We ended up with a nice box of tuna,dolphin,wahoo and snapper.

  On Monday things didn’t go so well. I had a steering issue come up and had to stay close but we got our 12 snapper and a limit of jacks and headed to the house early so I could try and fix the problem. It was something only new parts could fix so that shut me down for my Tuesday trip so now I am at the house waiting on UPS. Hopefully I will be back at it on Friday.

Capt. Mike

Posted in Fishing Reports

This report will cover the last twelve days of fishing down in Venice. And I will let the pictures tell most of the story. The weather played a part big part on a few of the of the trips. On a few days we just mostly ran away from storms all day long, but still managed some fish. One the first day with the Jobey Leray party it rained so much on us that it filled a five gallon bucket a little less than half full. But as bad as the weather was it went to as good as it gets. The yellowfin was the primary species on most of the trips with  the red snapper a nice bonus to the box at the end of the day along with a few dolphin. We also had the opertunity at a blue and a couple of whites but the light leaders we were using put us at a disadvantage but we got a few jumps out of them. The only problem with the tuna bite is that you are having to wade through the cudas for them. On average we are having 4-5 cuda bites for every yellowfin. One day the tuna are in the 90-over 100 pound range and the next they are all 50lbers. The highlight of this series of trips was when Blake Schidler  hooked a 113lb yellow on a spinning rod and a popper. What makes this fish so special is that Blake was only 13. He fought it  for as long as he could before he had to give it up. But back at the dock he let everyone know it was his fish. It was a nice stretch of fishing with a lot of personal best fish along with first tunas. Now here is a few of the pictures of what has been coming to the dock. Here is a shot of Homer with his flyrod hooked up to a big jack cravelle

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 The last fish before a nasty storm with 30 knot winds chased us back to the dock.        

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 Rod Schidler hard at work on his tuna.  

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 Young Blake hard at work with his soon to be 113lb popper caught tuna.    

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          The results of Blake’s cast.

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Posted in Fishing Reports

   I just got back from a week of fishing. I was hoping that the fishing was going to stay hot. But it slowed up and dropped the daily average down some. Our current dropped out and with no moving water the cudas come out in force and the tuna just shut down.

  I had Blaire and the rest of the North La. gang down for some fishing on Wednesday. The trip was perfect all the tuna we caught were over a 100 and we were 100%  on the bite to the fishbox. Sounds great right well not so much when you consider we only had one tuna bite all day but it whipped everyone onboard a couple of times. Back at the dock it weighed in at 113lbs.[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/005_61.jpg[/img] Here is another shot of it and three of the five it took to beat it. [img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/002_69.jpg[/img]

On this trip if it could of went wrong it did. We had weather thrown in there the rip line which has been there for a week was gone. My sounder wanted to act up and a dive boat anchored on the bait spot overnight. And to make it worse I had a dose of water in my starboard engine 70NM from the pass a filter change saved us a LONG LONG ride home. All issues were worked out on everything else and we were able to salvage a bad day offshore with a nice fish.

   The following day I had Tim McGregor and some of his buddies along with their wives. They saw the catch from Wednesday and I told them we would give the tuna a shot but it might be slow. The tuna option was quickly changed as we had a pretty stiff headsea to deal with for the run out to where we have been tuna fishing. So we switched it up and butterfly jigged up some amberjacks to save the day. I tried to finish it off with some lane snapper but the ever so elusive red snapper would not leave us alone. We called it a day a little early and headed in with only our amberjacks.

   Now with the fishing being slow and the weather causing some issues I was starting to feel the pressure. But when David Doughty, and his party showed up at the dock. He had a pretty unique gift for me. He had a pineapple he said it was for good luck. Perfect now we will catch some fish. The pineapple was quickly named Wilson and rode out in on of the drink holders on the console. I am convinced it lead us to the fish we crossed a perfect brown to electric purple/blue rip right outside the pass. [img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/image14_1.jpg[/img]

          I started to put out the plastics and didn’t have the entire spread out before the first fish bit on a Makaira Baby Brutus in a special dolphin color. It didn’t stay hooked but it was smoking some line. The next bite cam off of the same side on the Lena out of the rigger. This fish also managed to escape also. Now I am rethinking this pineapple thing alittle and I am having bad thoughts about turning him into a rum drink. And when the third bite happened but this time only to lose on of my Lenas. Mister Wilson’s days were numbered thankfully we had only been trolling for about a hundred yards or so. Any longer and the pineapple was dead. We did manage to convert the next three bites into fish in the box. They were all very solid dolphin in the 15-20lb range.[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/image54.jpg[/img]

           They didn’t pull like to mystery fish did. But at least the day was looking up. Meanwhile we lost a couple of crew members to the weather. But on the way to the next stop I got a call from Billy as he was coming in from a overnight trip and he still some livebaits and wanted to know if I wanted them. Now with a few dolphin in the box and some prime livebaits the tuna was a good possibility. No sooner than I put out the livebaits we had a double knockdown we missed one and had the other one. Well we almost had the other one. Somehow during the fight the rod man started to feel the effects of seas and decided to look over the side and call Ralph for help. Ralph wasn’t much help as he somehow managed to throw the reel into freespool and pop off  tuna. No problem let’s regroup and get back to it. This time only more dolphin would find our remaining livebaits. We ended the day a little early with 7 nice dolphin and a good story about the one that got away.

   The last two days of this set of trips was with John Leib brother Howard,Dennis and Frankie all in from Florida. I was still riding on the luck from mister Wilson and I even tried to get him back from a buddy who took him offshore on a overnight trip. But our paths never crossed. We managed to fight off the cudas long enough to put enough live chummers in the well and enough hookbaits in the well. I though it was game on at the first stop as we immediately double up on nice 45lb. Yellows. After that it just died we had a couple of missed opportunities. And I have to take blame for a blown gaff shot on a very big dolphin. I stuck him and he jumped off the gaff and popped the leader. I guess I should have been quicker on the gaff sorry about that one John. We made a couple of moves and picked up two more yellows and a dolphin during the course of the day. The cudas were terrible and took quite a toll on hooks and bait. We ended the day around 4:30 and headd to the pass with four yellowfin and a dolphin for the day.

   When we got back to the dock mister Wilson was waiting for me on a piling by my slip. We can’t go wrong for the next day. We made a beeline to where the best bait was and had to do it quick since they were moving the rig. This day was going to be a race against mother nature since a cold front was coming down. While making bait a few fish were popping around so we cut the bait catching short and tried to get a couple real quick the cudas were just more aggressive than the tuna. We did get a double only to lose one to the other line but we did get John his tuna that we didn’t get the day before. Now this is where mister Wilson’s luck came into play as Howard decides to toss the topwater to a boil and hooks a 80lb or so yellow on the spinner.[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/008_56.jpg[/img]

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   [img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/014_31.jpg[/img]      After a few laps around the boat a very beat fish is in the boat for the ride home. [img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/017_26.jpg[/img]

   There are a few shots of Howard’s fish as he was pretty pumped up.  Somehow Mister Wilson lost his head in the process and we buried him at sea but his luck kept with us. As we finished the day with a real nice dolphin of which I didn’t mess up the gaff shot this time and another yellow that everyone got a piece of in the 80lb range.[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/021_19.jpg[/img]

           With three nice yellows in the box and a dolphin we headed to the house[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/024_15.jpg[/img]

           only to get hit by the front and 25-30 knot winds as I turned into the pass what perfect timing. Thank you Mister Wilson.

Capt. Mike

Posted in Fishing Reports

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.

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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.

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   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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               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