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?!
Tag: venice fishing
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 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. Within no time we had drinks / food loaded, truck parked and we were making our way down the river. 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! We ran about 30 nm and in no time we have our first customer! Birthday girl on the rod… She made short work of an average sized late-May / June fish and in no time it was 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. 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… Popper fish in box… After this our next fish came on a live bait and it was solid… About to come over the rail… Wife with a hero shot… And CLEARLY best picture of the trip! Same fish… Me with the fish… 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… Same fish with fella from Texas… 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! 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? Picture of ugly tackle with sun at about high noon… 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. 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. One more look at them… 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: Also got to see a 297 warsaw at the dock… or at least it’s carcass… Since getting home we’ve been eating pretty well: Tuna, avocado BLT…. Start here… Finish here… A little poke. This… Into this… With what’s left over you try to eat… Great stuff!
Can’t wait to get back! Hard to go wrong in South LA when you have great weather and a great captain!
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. Within no time we had drinks / food loaded, truck parked and we were making our way down the river. 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! We ran about 30 nm and in no time we have our first customer! Birthday girl on the rod… She made short work of an average sized late-May / June fish and in no time it was 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. 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… Popper fish in box… After this our next fish came on a live bait and it was solid… About to come over the rail… Wife with a hero shot… And CLEARLY best picture of the trip! Same fish… Me with the fish… 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… Same fish with fella from Texas… 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! 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? Picture of ugly tackle with sun at about high noon… 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. 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. One more look at them… 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: Also got to see a 297 warsaw at the dock… or at least it’s carcass… Since getting home we’ve been eating pretty well: Tuna, avocado BLT…. Start here… Finish here… A little poke. This… Into this… With what’s left over you try to eat… 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.
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.
Very Good Fishing
It’s time to head it to the house to recharge my batteries and enjoy some family time. I ended this string of trips today with the Valentine family. The fishing was as it was all week. Which is pretty damn good. We fished till 1 before we had our fish due to some conversion issues. But finished the day strong. Now it’s going to be a enjoyable two days off. Then back at it for a week or so.
82lb Wahoo Caught!
Well my knee held together altough I don’t it’s happy with me now. Big thanks to Jay Powell for coming out to help out today. We had blacks, yellows and wahoo to 82lbs. Good day but a little on the rough side.
Quick Wahoo Report
Another decent day wahoo fishing. Started off trying them on fly but we fell short of that goal. Got these trolling XRAP’S
Mid March report
Here is a mid march fishing and best of all catching report. Thankfully there has been more catching going on rather than fishing. The weather has been a huge contributing factor lately with conditions from very rough to as smooth as a strippers nether regions. The lump has been our go to place up until a few days ago. For one reason it as just been to rough to go anywhere else. But the bite has been pretty decent, but with some up and downs in it. These up and downs did cause me to make a not wrong decision but I could of made a better decision for my group that came in from Pensacola. Thank goodness the wahoo bit ok along with a few blacks AJ’s and one lonely yellowfin that joined us for a ride back to Cypress Cove. But we did miss the best lump day of the season so far because of it. But at least we still made a good day out of it.
From that trip I ran in early march the weather has caused me to cancel way more than I should have. The weather man did cost us a few trips with a forcast that was way off. I hate playing weather Russian Roulette. Unfortunately that’s just part of winter fishing. Enough of *****ing about the weather and on to the meat and potatoes of this report. I started off with last series of trips with David Markovich and his wife on Wednesday the 13th.. A yellowfin was on his bucket list and we set off to the lump to get it crossed off of his list. We did a little wahoo fishing on the way out in some not so favorable conditions but doable. I couldn’t find any that wanted to play with us. But we did find some AJ’s that were willing. Little did I know they were going to be almost non stop companions for us that day. After we got to the lump we couldn’t get away from them they ate chunks and jigs and of course our mullet. We did lose one yellow at the boat so at least David got to have the chance at one. It was a very enjoyable day of catching fish just not the target species we were looking for. David if you read this I will get you your yellowfin when you come back this summer that’s a promise.
After the Markovich trip I had Flip Hubbard and his son Tad come in for two days. On the first day I was woke up around 4 AM with the camp shaking from the 25 knot winds. Great not a good way to start out the day. A call was made to meet at 8 and hope the weather guessers were right with it dropping as the day went on. We went out of South pass and went with the seas and did some wahoo fishing as we worked our way to the west and the lump. The wahoo were a no show although we did mark them but I couldn’t figure out the code to make them bite. We set a drift up at the lump and it was pretty steady with a blackfin here and there and of course the ever annoying kingfish and sharks. But Tad did get his first kingfish. Finally at the end of the day we got on a good bite of 60-80 pound yellows and put three in the boat and the call was made that they didn’t want to kill anymore. It was kind of a hard decision to make, keep fishing and catching them. Or head in with happy customers. They won out and we left in somewhat ok seas. The weather guessers did get it somewhat right. On the way in I saw some signs that I needed to see to change up my gameplan for the next day. On day two the seas were slick and with my poagie net onboard we set out to net poagie and live chum the lump. Well the kings loved that but with no current and everyone else around me looking bored we left and went looking. We found what we were looking for and went to work live chumming a mixture of yellowfin and blackfin. We had a few wahoo cutoffs as well. Remember the rig from the day before that they wouldn’t bite on well they wanted livebait. But they wouldn’t touch a livebait on wire. We did keep two yellows one we gave to another boat and one went to a cookout. We hit a little snapper spot on the way home to let them catch some since they have never caught one so we scratched that species off the bucket list. It was a great feeling knowing that cutting chum was over for the year now that the livebait has shown up.
The Stephenson group was next up and with the slick day we had the day before and what the guessers were guessing. It was a susprise when we hit the gulf to find it pretty darn rough. But the tuna were right were we left them and we went to work putting a box of yellowfin and blackfin together. They get so excited and turned on by live chumming that its almost not fair to the fish. We only had two yellows a typical springtime 30 pounder and one in the 70 pound range. We also had a bonus catch of a 10 pound mangrove snapper that ate a bait meant for a tuna. With the group wanting to go hit up Bourbon Street we left early and got there fish cleaned so they could go and party. The next day with the Huelsman group was carbon copy of the day before except that there were more yellowfin than the day before they were the 20-30 pound models but they were very willing. The only thing different about this day was the front that came crashing down on us. Luckily we had our limit of yellowfin and a self imposed boat limit of blackfin and we left a little before 11 to head back to the marina. It was a good run of trips with plenty of fish to go home and happy clients. Until next time catch’em up.
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