# Venice in March with Relentless Sportfishing



## Capt. Mike Ellis (Oct 23, 2007)

<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">I know it?s been awhile since my last report. I know I have been slacking on the reports. But now that my daughter is old enough to want hang out with daddy all of my spare time when at home is devoted to her. Just about all of the last several trips have been fishing with the rest of the fleet on a hump out to the east of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Venice</st1lace></st1:City>. Some days it has hard to stay and deal with the multitudes of kingfish and sharks but by the end of the day you would be rewarded with some yellowfin and blackfin in the box. The only good thing about the kings and sharks is that you got to go through your entire stock of hooks and get rid of any slightly rusty ones. Once the kings get real thick we would switch over and cast Braid wahoo bombs at them to pass the time and to restock the bait pile. But the real reason was to get some sweet revenge on them after them taking so many hooks. I have to say that doing that was kind of fun on a 8 to 1 Avet reel with 40lb line on a 6?3? Cape Fear. Most people enjoyed that more than the grind of chunking the tuna. We did have several trips that stood out from the rest of them. The first one that comes to mind is the bachelor party for Derek Fliener and crew. The group was big enough to need two boats so I had Billy Wells run the second part of the group on Wild Bill. Day one started out a little on the bumpy side but not to bad at all. We both started out wahoo fishing only I had no interest in what I was trolling Billy managed to find one. So now with some pressure on me from the bachelor group to not be outdone by Billy. I decided to make a far run to the east to get into undisturbed water. About halfway there I see a fin and yelled out mako and told everyone to hold on and did a 180 as quick as I could. Thankfully I had a couple of kingfish in the box from the day before. So I cut a big chunk of king and drove the boat to the mako but he was making it easy by coming to see what just did a 180 at 40MPH. The mako rig ( 30? 600lb cable windon to straight 130 Jerry Brown) was quickly put out for the perfect jaws type of hit. It was a quick zip followed by a few clicks followed by her just swimming away slowly until I hit her with the hooks. Dustin was the closest to the rod so he was the one to get the thrill of fighting him.







<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> The fish was fairly tame until close to the end and then he did his best marlin impersonation and tailwalked in a huge circle before giving us a couple of jumps







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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> . After that I got the flyer in her and a tail rope on the biting end and the tail end







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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> Now what it was to early to quite fishing but it would be a shame to waste the fish. So we made the call to fish a couple more hours and then head in and weight he mako. We stopped short and tried the hump with only a few kingfish to show for our efforts and with the building seas. We decided to get back on the troll and fish towards the pass. We didn?t get to far before we had a good knockdown on a brown to clean green color change. At first the fish was acting like a real nice wahoo. And my angler was doing a great job on the fish until we saw what we had. As soon as the fish was ID?ed as another mako he kind of freaked out a little.







<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> A call was made to Billy who was fishing the same line as we were. To come and get the rod since we already had a mako onboard. By this time it was rough not just bumpy but flat out rough. You can see how rough it was in the picture.







<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> We successfully handed off the flyer and the rod with the mako hooked to it without incident.







<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> They fought the fish for about 20 minutes or so and got some jumps out of her before she rolled up in the leader and broke off. Trying to judge her size from the jumps she would of easily been in the 200lb or so range. Back at the dock our make went 302lbs. And filled every ice chest they had.







<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> The next day was just as fun since we had enough meat and the wind was howling we out out west and had a sheephead roundup. I think you could of sunk the boat with them. The fishing was as simple as it gets a 1/2oz jighead with a small piece of shrimp on it. No fluro or anything fancy at all. We had pompano,redfish,Spanish mackerel and red snapper as bycatch.<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> The next trip that comes to mind is the Harvey and his girlfriend Nicole trip. The weather was picture perfect of the trip. We started off with a couple of wahoo coming unglued but you could tell it was going to be one of those days so it was no big deal. We got into a area with blackfins showering ballyhoo and a few yellows mixed in. So out went the circle hook rigged ballyhoo and one plug for the stay wahoo. The blackfin loved the ballyhoo and we quickly went through all that I had rigged.







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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> The hookup ratio was pretty good with the circle hooks. I was pretty amazed at how well they swam. I think that if I stopped the boat they would of kept on swimming past us. After the blacks went down we moved over to the hump and started chunking. The first bait was a big kingfish which we put to use as bait instead of a blackfin from out of the fishbox. The very next bait was a real good yellowfin which beat Nichole after a pretty long fight. <st1lace w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Harvey</st1:City></st1lace> stepped in to finish it off.







<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> After pictures and a short cleanup we moved back into position for another drift.







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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> We had a couple of malfunctions with backlashes when yellowfin ate right at the boat. I was not able to get a one out without breaking off the fish. But our luck changed with <st1lace w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Harvey</st1:City></st1lace> on the next chunk in the water. The yellows came up on a handful of chum and got one of the pieces with a hook in it <st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Harvey</st1lace></st1:City> whipped the fish pretty quick along with himself also. With all the fish they needed we decided to leave them biting and headed to the house around noon or so.







<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> The next trip was with the Southern pipe crew this trip was memorable not because of the size of the fish but because they were just fun to fish with. We started off and jigged a limit of Aj?s and then on the the hump to try for some tuna. The blackfin had taken the place of the kingfish we we put a hurtin on them. I don?t know how but two yellows managed to beat the blackfin to the bait. We ended the day early with two yellows a limit of Aj?s and a full box of blackfin. It is nice to know when it?s time to quite killing fish. They threw in the towel just before I was going to mention that they might not have the icechest room to hold the fillets. It was a perfect day back early with the boat and fish cleaned and sitting down to a extra thick steak and cocktail by 5PM.<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> The last trip I will mention was my last trip was with the Bradshaw family. The weather was susposed to be on the rough side but the bouy was reading 1.3? at 4 seconds so the call was made at the dock to try the tuna. Well that was the wrong call I think I should of done some metrological form of math as it was nowhere near the prediction from the bouy. With Ms. Bradshaw out for the count due to the seas so I wasn?t going to go any father offshore. We decided to switch gears and use butterfly jigs to see what would bite. We quickly got a limit of Aj?s using a mixture of different jigs. The OTI jigs and the Shimano?s were neck and neck. But the OTI?s beat them out on price since we lost quite a few of them. Well that is the human wrecking ball A.K.A. Bob did along with a reel. I wouldn?t let him quite I just tied another jig on and told him to drop it. If we made 75 drops I bet we didn?t have 6 drops that came up without a fish. We could never even hit the bottom due to the jacks. We ended the day with everyone having sore arms from the jacks. We lost a few UFO?s we couldn?t stop on 80lb braid and a SevenSeas jigging rod. At the end we had a limit of jacks and a lone blackfin. The fishing is pretty good right now somedays you just have to settle for whatever the weather throws at you. <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Capt. Mike<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o></o>


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## Matt09 (Jun 6, 2008)

Looks like a badd A$$ trip.


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## mpmorr (Oct 3, 2007)

Heck of a report Mike, way to go on that Mako. One of these days.:bowdown


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## Captain Woody Woods (Oct 2, 2007)

nice mike ive seen you out there a bunch lately


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## recess (Oct 8, 2007)

What a great report with pictures. I think mako'sare one hell of a fish to catch and boat. Again good job to your crew and angler. Gene


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## mdrobe2 (Oct 12, 2007)

Nice report Mike! See you May 10th for 2 trips. 

mdrobe2 and company...

We are looking forward to staying at cajun fishing adventures and eating the great food, in addition to the fishing!


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