Capt. Mike's 5/3-5/10 Venice report

[Captain Mike Ellis]

I don’t know where to start this last couple of weeks has bee a blur for me. I have a day off due to Mother Nature. So after getting some much needed sound sleep, I will put up my trip reports for the last month and give thanks to all who have fished with me.
On Wednesday the 3rd I had David Beaver and his nephew Levi out for a white meat haul. Instead of them learning to crawl I started them out running by jerking a couple of big AJ’s. I don’t think Dave was quite ready for the power of the fish and the technique we had to use but after he got his balance and spit out the cigar he bit in half he did a good job of landing the first AJ of the day. All the while Levi is taking this all in and trying to decide if this is really what he wants to do. Well with a little male-to-male gender bashing/questioning Levi couldn’t back out now. He had the upper hand of knowing what to expect and made very quick work out of our second AJ and filling out their limit on them. The next stop was to electric reel a few grouper which turned out to be a dud. From there it was off to fish for what has become my favorite fun fish, the mangrove snapper. After going over the technique with Dave and Levi a little chum was thrown in and the mangrove’s started to come over the rail. But they got smart and we had to drop down leader size so we had a few more break offs. In the meantime I sent Levi down to the bottom where he added a few more mangroves and three nice gags to the box. A quick fish count revealed twenty fat mangroves in the box up to 11 pounds two AJ’s to fifty and three gag grouper it was time to head to the barn.




On May 4th and the 5th I had a good buddy’s father and three of his friends come in for some more bottom fishing. I had to produce since in late July I am going to be in their neck of the woods and a good fish fry would be nice. On the first day I made a decision to go to deep water and try for fewer but bigger snapper, some AJ and some grouper. But the seas didn’t want to cooperate with us. So I made a detour and fished a rig we don’t get to fish much because of the current. To my surprise the current was very light that day and we were able to get away with 20-ounce leads. Three rods go down and three red snapper come up, it was hot and heavy for about the first eight fish then it slowed down some. I changed up Jack’s rod and sent him down with a little different bait and he promptly connects with the biggest snapper of the day a solid fifteen pounder. We ended up with a four-man limit of red snapper in about an hour and a half. They ranged from 18” to 15 pounds or so. With a limit of red snapper in the boat and it only being 9:30am it was off to find the mangroves. I made a stop on a rig in 100’ to check and see if any mangroves where home. They were there but not in an eating mood. We did manage a few but the oversized redfish stole the show on the bottom. After everyone had their fill of catching and releasing, we headed to my little honey hole. Once there the current and wind was competing and I had to keep an engine in reverse just to fish. But the mangroves were there as always. We put 15 mangroves in the boat up to 10 pounds or so. With the box almost full and running out of bait we made the decision to head for the marina fire up the grill and enjoy a drink or two.
On day two it was a different story the fish just didn’t want to bite at all. The rig where we limited out on reds had a ton of current and tons of 14” fish. So we left to find some snapper elsewhere which proved to be pretty far away. We must have hit 20 rigs looking for fish. I bet we only had three or four bites and maybe two throwback snapper to show for our efforts. But I finally found the reds when I went inside to catch some mangroves, and another four man limit was had in about a hour. While I was adding mangroves to the box from the bow there were so many red snapper on this rig I had them chummed up and feeding on the surface. You just had to find the one you wanted and put a piece of bait in front of it. We stopped when we reached our limit of reds and about a dozen mangroves since they wanted to get on the road for the drive back to Crystal River. I didn’t get any pictures on my camera from these two trips but as soon as I get them from Jim I will post them.
On Saturday I had a dream charter one guy and his only request was to go fishing. He did have some new jigging gear to try out so we were going to try that. But a call from a buddy clued me in on a pretty hot wahoo bite. Tom Cooper was fine with wahoo so wahoo fishing we go. It took about a minute for the first wahoo to hit. But after a screaming run the hooks pulled. No problem at all a fifty percent catch to strike ratio is pretty good with diving baits. Baits go back out and as I was putting the second bait out it got whacked and the fish was on. I gave the rod to Tom who quickly realized he was not in the shape he thought he was. But he worked the 65lb. whaoo to the boat pretty quickly. As he was catching his breath and regaining his composure, we had another wahoo on. Tom was back on the rod again and another 50 plus pound wahoo hit the boat. After two wahoo, Tom had had enough and told me I was going to catch the next fish. Since I like to eat wahoo better than tuna I was up for it. Well the next fish turned out to be a nasty greasy stinking kingfish. The kingfish was released to feed the sharks. The baits were reset and we continued to troll for about twenty minutes before the next bite. I was on the rod again and this time I had a jack crevelle. Talk about catching a junk slam I was well on my way to one. Tom wouldn’t let me off the rod until I had a wahoo. So one more pass and another fish on. This one didn’t pull out very much line but I took the rod and had a low forty-pound wahoo, the smallest of the day. Now Tom was back up and good thing since we got a double on wahoo. The one Tom was on turned out to be a solid 75-80lb. wahoo and mine in the low sixties. We were only able to catch one more wahoo before calling it a day around noon. But going 6 for 9 on wahoo was a pretty good day and ice chest room was going to be an issue so we headed back to the Venice marina.








On Sunday the 7th I had Bill Mansey his sister Lisa,Glen and Steve onboard for a tuna overnighter. With the wahoo fishing the day before I went back to the area of the slaughter but the wahoo didn’t want anything to do with us that day. I marked them but they were not eating what we had. Not a problem since we had perfect tuna bait, so it was off the go tuna fishing. The first rig only had toothy fish on it and we lost a few of our baits to them. Not wanting to waste bait. It was off to the rig I had decided we would fish that night. Upon arrival, live baits were deployed and a 50 pound yellow was on in about three minutes. It was looking like I made the right decision for a fishing location but as dark hit us so did the sharks. We managed one more yellow among all of the sharks. The butterfly jigging was bringing up lots of blackfin heads and a few whole ones. So we decided to hop around to a few other rigs to see what was happening, more sharks is what was happening. Then more sharks and then sharks on top of sharks on top water. Then the cudas joined in on the action. I was having a very frustrating night. With the shark problem and the lack of yellowfin in the box. I told everyone to get a beanbag and take a nap since I was going to make to run to the east to another rig to be there for the first light bite. As we got to the rig, I woke Lisa up and almost instantly she was on to a big fish. But with the current and the size of the fish we lost that battle. No problem. Re-rig and start over. We had a repeat of the first fish: fish-on-fish-off. With only five yellowfin in the box I was starting to get nervous we wouldn’t get any more tuna on this trip. But a short four-mile run put us on the fish we needed to cap off the trip. At first it was Steve who lost a real nice fish on chunk. Then the remaining live baits went out and it took about two minutes before another fish was on. This time it was Bill on it and the harness was strapped on him and the fight was on. After about a 20-minute fight a 100 plus yellow was lying on the deck bleeding out. That one fish made the night persistence pay off for us. We ended up with six yellows, Bill’s largest tuna to date, and Lisa’s first yellowfin.





The next group in was Larry Bernstien’s group this is where mother nature decided NOT to give us a break. On Wednesday morning it wasn’t blowing at the marina but the buoy at southwest pass was reading 20 knots. We tried to make it out snapper fishing but only got about two miles before turning back. We had to make the day out of it in the river red fishing. It wasn’t the targeted species on this trip but it is still fishing. I found a little protected cut and put out cut poagie on the bottom. And in a couple of hours we had fifteen redfish in the boat from 20-28 inches along with a bonus flounder. The weather got us but that’s the way it goes. I will be back at it on Saturday weather permitting. Until next time,
Capt Mike

[quack quack]

nice report capt Mike