Went to Venice Louisiana with Richard LaBoulliere, Harold Heisch, Austin Patton, Larry Peterson, and Jerry Christenson. Stayed in a 4 bedroom, two bath Houseboat. Nicest part was the commercial ice machine on the back deck. Fished inshore with Bobby Warren (Adventure Charters) on Monday. My first fish was a 40″ redfish. Lost 3 more bulls before landing another one about 35″. Richard and Harold both caught bulls as well. Rest of the day was working sandbars, and few fish until we moved to a small cove fed by a channel going back into the cane. Ended up finishing out a 15 fish redfish limit on gold spoons, with Richard having the hot rod.
On Tuesday we went offshore to the Ram Powell rig with Scott and Mike of Paradise Outfitters. They cast netted pogies as soon as we got into the gulf, then used sabiki rigs to catch a few threadfin herring. They chummed with live pogies, and used the herring as the live baits. We picked up a 30lb yellowfin pretty quickly, but then it was barracudas and sharks. About noon, we switched to chunking and I took a turn on the rod. Hooked up almost instantly and settled in for a hard fight in the harness. Took 50 minutes and ended with a 167.6lb yellowfin on the gaff. We decided to do one more drift and Austin ended up with a big YFT on the line. After 2 hours, 20 minutes, with the fish visible just 50 feet below the boat, the leader parted. We headed in and stopped a rig which I think was labeled SP67. We limited out on keeper snapper with just 6 drops with double drop rigs.
On Wednesday we went out with Bobby Warren again. We fished the south pass area most of the day and picked up about 8 trout and half a 3 man limit of reds. We ended the day back at the same cove as Monday, only this time I had the hot rod, and finished out our limit on gold spoons.
