Capt. Mike's 2/8-2/9 Lump report

[Captain Mike Ellis]

My coustomers from wednesday and thursday put this report up just last night so I thouhgt I would give you guys a trip perspective from the other side. And not someone trying to book a trip and always saying the fishing is great.

We got out w/ Capt Mike to fish the Lump on the 8th and 9th. We had folks from RI, Chicago and MI. After arriving at New Orleans Int Airport on Tuesday night we drove down to Port Fourchon. It took us about 4 hours to get there including a stop for dinner and beers at a local shack. We finally got some sleep and we're up and on the boat at 6am. The weather is lookin sweet and we are pumped for unusually nice seas. Run WOT to the Lump where there is nothing happening. We boat a few bonitas and that is it. The strong cold front passing through was responsible for the nice weather and shutting down the bite. In typical Relentless fashion, Capt Mike decides to run out to a rig. We head further off shore hoping to make something happen. We are marking fish everwhere but they don't want anything we have- and we had everything-live bait, dead bait, cut bait, chunk bait, swimming bait, plugs, flies. The RI representative does hook up on a Blackfin on a popper but that was it. We return to the dock after a 12 hour trip- we are not optimistic about the next day as the weather pattern isn't forecasted to change....

Thursday IS different though. Like blowing 20-25 different and calling for 3-6 ft seas. And we're happy about it? More than a few boats decided to not go out and there was a run on Bonine at the marina but Mike decides to "stick our nose out". And it isn't that bad. The cat handles slop well and we had rollers in one direction and chop 90 degrees off of that. It took us a while to get to the lump but we got there.

With wind and current in the same direction, there were lots of people struggling with anchors, after a bit of dragging, ours stuck and would not come unstuck (but that is another story). After chumming/chunking for about 20 minutes we were tight to the first yellow of the day.

As Mike said: "it is amazing how a fish in the boat changes everything". Thats the truth.

We get back at it and in about 10 minutes the RI'er hooks up and this ones a "good fish" - he battles w/ a small gut belt for a good 1/2 hour. We drop off the ball and chase it off the lump.

While he's doing that, I put on the big harness and eventually put it in the boat.
While we are motoring back to the ball, we do some drive-by's on other boats- that's where Mike gets us close and we toss a bonito to the other captains since that is what the yellows want today.

Well after banking postive karma, we get back on our ball and the first bait in the water results in another good fish and we drop off the ball again to give chase.

All in all, we're done at about 2:30 and head back in to the dock.


We hung out at the cleaning station for about 3 hours, drinking some beer and eating our weight in sashimi. I met Spectacular from this board and we basically sat around BS'in and just lovin life. We did see another group bring in the second largest yellow edge grouper ever recorded as caught in LA. but there were no other tunas brought in.

When I got back to MI, I spent about 4 hours steaking and setting up for future sashimi engagements
If your thinking about getting out, I know who I'd be calling......