# Destin to Venice 8/11-8/13



## Head Kned (Mar 21, 2011)

My crew and I left Sandestin Marina at 11:00 loaded for bear headed to Venice. We were running across the bay under the Mid Bay Bridge when I decided to check the livewell. It was not working, when i was running it pushed water into the well and when we staopped it drained out of the well through the output. So we turned around and ran over to Legendary where i keep my boat and Bill Kight, my service manager, had a new pump installed in less than an hour. On way again. We hit the pass in Destin and it looked terrible, there was a huge cell building right in front of the pass. We turned around and decided to run the ICW to Pensacola. There still was some weather that way, but not much and we decided to stop for Lunch in Fort Walton. By 2:30 we were back on track and running toward Venice. 

We made it to Baptist Collette by 7:15 and we were all relevied. 








We got some grub and called it a night. 

Friday morning we were moving a little slower than I wanted, but headed to the fuel dock and loaded up with about 500 lbs of ice and everything else we might need. 








Running the Mississippi







Checked a few rigs on the way out for bait and finally found some perfect sized hardtails on a floater in MCBK 547. We got about 25 5-6' hardtails and set a coarse for Thunderhorse. While we were running over i saw Devils tower in the distance and decided to change coarse and check it out. Boy was I glad I did that. As soon as we got about a mile away there was life everywhere. 

We hooked up to a 15 or so lb Yellowfin on out first go. Our next pass we got this guy. 








A little while later we hooked up to another good one and handed the rod to our most inexperienced angler. We hooked him up the harness and he started the fight. 




















Continued below


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## Head Kned (Mar 21, 2011)

We picked up a few smaller Yellows on waxwings and poppers. Once we ran out of bait we decided to set out our spread and head north to where we were going to spend the night. Had one good knock down on a Illander/Ballyhoo, but nothing after that. 

Nice open water sunset. 








Ran to Deepwater Nautilus, we set up and ate dinner and goofed around for a while. Then we nosed up to the rig to see if anyone was home. THe current was pumping. Our sounder lit up at 200 ft. we dropped a small butterfly jig down and immediately boated a 30 lb Big Eye Tuna. We then set up for another shot at one. We tied a 12 oz jig on this time so it would drop faster and straigher. Immediately hook up. This one has a little more back bone. Boated this guy 30 minutes later right under a 100. I wanted Tom to show the set up. It was a Talica 16 on a Terez rod with 50 lb power pro. 








We set up drift after drift hooking up everytime. We boated 2 more nice Big Eyes in the next hour or so. one 60 and one 70. At this point we were running out of room in our front fish box and runnning out of ice. The crew and I decided we would head north from there and forego the next days fishing to save all this fish. We did one more set up before we left and hooked into a really nice fish. I fought this one and thought I could do it with out the harness. but 20 minutes in I had them strp me up. Boated him after a while and boy it was big. Well over a 100 and I thought it could be close to the FL State Record. 













We ran North and ducked into Pensacola at 7:15 to refuel and Ice up. Headed over to Sandestin to clean the fish and rest. Our plan was to leave to the 2 large Big Eye on ice and weigh them at Harbor walk that evening. 

Ran over to Harbor walk and weighed the big one. I was disapointed, it tipped the scales at 100 even. It had been bled really well and sat in ice for 12 hours. I really thought it would be around 150. He it is on the scales. 







Ready for our next one. I hope you enjoy.


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## reeldog80 (Apr 27, 2009)

Happy to see the Tuna hitting the deck!! Great report!


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## sniperpeeps (Mar 5, 2011)

Awesome Report!!


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## bigrick (Sep 29, 2010)

Looks like the tuna are getting bigger and bigger, Nice fish


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## superchicken (Jan 9, 2010)

Very nice big eye. Congrats and great report. We watched a nice blue crashing skip jack Saturday at Innovator and went 7 for 11 on yellowfin, 65 # avg. Long run from Destin to Venice for sure. How was the water at Devils? Real dirty where we were but flying fish were being chased by tuna until around 11 am then they were down. Caught a few more chumming but by 1 it was over.


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## Head Kned (Mar 21, 2011)

The water was not all that good at Devils. Maybe clean green. We got there just after noon and stayed until 5. It was non stop action. Bonita kept taking our baits or we would have done better. We hooked up to one really nice YF on a popper, which was cool to here that drag scream, but he spit it.


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## MSViking (Oct 11, 2007)

Head: Great report! Great pics! Thanks for taking the time to share! Hilton's showed really poor water quality, how did it look to you guys? Glad to see that the tuna were home regardless of water quality. Were there many if any other boats out there?

As you can see Hilton's is showing poor water quality, Glad to see the tuna did not get the memo


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## Head Kned (Mar 21, 2011)

I tried to upload Thursday's chart Friday morning before we ran out, but i could not get a signal in Venice on my iPad. So as we were running to Thunderhorse, i decided to stay west and pulled over at Devils tower. Wednesdays chart showed it was in on the edge of clean green, Thunderhorse was in brown.


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## Longbow14 (Aug 8, 2011)

thats a Crazy trip. Destin to venice how many miles was that round trip?


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## Head Kned (Mar 21, 2011)

From Destin pass it is about 190 miles to Venice. Out of Venice to Where we ran and back was about 300.


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## samoajoe (Dec 28, 2010)

Dammit man! Great action all around. Thanks for sharing the action, and looks like plenty of good eats!


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## Magic236 (Oct 1, 2007)

Head Kned, that is one h-e-LL of a TRIP! Tuna can really fool you as to their size.....Thanks for sharing..........


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## Sea-r-cy (Oct 3, 2007)

What was the fuel consumption on that fantastic trip? Sea-r-cy


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## Head Kned (Mar 21, 2011)

Sea-r-cy said:


> What was the fuel consumption on that fantastic trip? Sea-r-cy


I burned about 320 gallons and by my best calculations I went close to that considering all the circles and resets we did at the rigs. My burn running at around 40 was 1.1.


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## nfo2na (Aug 4, 2009)

Awesome report! Great pics! Nice job on the tuna. If you are looking for crew the next time you go, please keep me in mind. I have been wanting to fish Venice for quite some time. 

Semper Fi

Junior


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## crackerjac (Jan 11, 2011)

We left out of OB Saturday morning and fished Thunderhorse that afternoon. It was totally dead, water was dirty and the tuna were no where around. So we fished Nikita after dark same story, nothing. Needless to say it was a long unproductive trip 300 miles, 30 hours, 650g fuel, no tuna.


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## Head Kned (Mar 21, 2011)

crackerjac said:


> We left out of OB Saturday morning and fished Thunderhorse that afternoon. It was totally dead, water was dirty and the tuna were no where around. So we fished Nikita after dark same story, nothing. Needless to say it was a long unproductive trip 300 miles, 30 hours, 650g fuel, no tuna.


I wish I could have posted this before your trip. Devils tower was loaded only 15 miles from where you were.


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## MSViking (Oct 11, 2007)

It's funny how these rigs can be, a few weeks back we fished the drillship Pathfinder, Devil's Tower and Thunderhorse all on the same day (all these rigs are with in 15 miles of one another), all were in blue water, yet only Thunderhorse was holding active tuna. You just never know when and where they will turn on!


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## crackerjac (Jan 11, 2011)

MSYellowfin said:


> It's funny how these rigs can be, a few weeks back we fished the drillship Pathfinder, Devil's Tower and Thunderhorse all on the same day (all these rigs are with in 15 miles of one another), all were in blue water, yet only Thunderhorse was holding active tuna. You just never know when and where they will turn on!


 I agree I think it has a lot to do with timing, you just have to be there when there up and hungry.


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## Justin B (Apr 4, 2011)

Looks like a hell of a trip


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## matttheboatman (Aug 25, 2008)

We took the trip to Venice last month. It is surprisingly easier than most overnight trips considering that once you get there, you can sleep in a hotel if you like and/or have a nice dinner - as we did before going offshore. If the fish are there, and you can hang around a couple days - I say GO, its easier than you think!

WARNING: they have removed all markers (to my surprise) from the Missississippi River Gulf Outlet shipping channel. These are clearly shown on all chart plotters and runs from the Open Gulf toward New Orleans. You will see the NO bouy on your chart which is the deepwater passage across the barrier island shoals that you'll need to cross to get to Baptiste Collette from the East. In the daytime, its a no brainer. But at night, you will not have the assistance of those channel markers to keep you in deep water.


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