Capt. Mike's 4/15 Venice report

[Captain Mike Ellis]

I had Tim Deroche’s group out on Saturday for a bachelor party for their buddy Mis. The conditions couldn’t have been better the water was blue and the waves a very manageable, approximately 1-2’. After hoping around to a few rigs in search of bait I hit the mother lode and filled the well up with perfect bait. Good thing I did because between the scattered grass and the multitudes of 12-18” dolphin, rainbow runners and the ever-present cudas my bait supply was taking a beating. We broke the ice and bloodied up the fish box at the first rig with a double on 25-30lb yellows. But with the grass becoming more and more of a problem it was time for greener pastures. I made the decision to move to another rig about fifteen miles away. It proved to be a good move as we were pulling up another charter boat was gaffing a double header. There were tuna eating flying fish all over the rig. I had a tuna take the line from my hand as I was setting the first bait. Unfortunately the fish was small so he was released to grow up and fight another day. After weeding through a bunch of small tuna we managed three good fish in the low 40 to 50lb range. There were larger fish to be caught but they were inside the 500-meter ring the rig was enforcing that day. Man that is the most frustrating thing to see the tuna eating about 50 yards from where you can go. The largest fish of the day was also the fish story of the day. Since it tried it’s best to dump a Tiagra 16 before the hook pulled. But that’s fishing, Joe did nothing wrong to lose the fish, it just wasn’t meant to be. All in all it was a good day with plenty of tuna steaks to go around and four less tuna virgins in the world now.
Capt. Mike
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