SaltyCajun.com - Venice Offshore 8-17

One Eye Ed asked me to deck for him and I jumped on board. We got an early start.

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No we did not pull him out of the bathroom while he was shaving. He got carried away while applying sun screen in the dark. That is something I have never used so I might look like that if I ever tried. The forecast was for storms in the afternoon. We agreed to head for the barn if threatened with bad storms. On the way out the sunrise was colorfull but letting us know what mother nature had in store for us.

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Because of the forecast we did not try to make bait at the end of the river. We ran out the 60 miles and picked away at the bait out there. With only about a dozen in the live well we move out and set up. The bite was spotty and we lost our first 2 tuna. SNAFU!
On our 3rd bite we get a solid hookup.

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These guys had no idea what they had in store. They had been fishing bull redfish for the last 2 days and thought they had the toughest fish going. OFW! The first fish went through 3 guys before we stuck it. It was only a 60 pounder but these men were close to my age and one was actually 2 years older than me.

We lost another and got bit off by a baracuda. They got a skipjack on a popper to keep some action going. All the other boats around were doing just about the same. Nothing was on fire except the sky. Jerry on the poco loco had hooked up to a good one and was having trouble getting it to the boat. It was getting dark and the winds were kicking up the seas. One of the 3 storms around us had lightning in it. We hook up to another tuna.

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This one comes in with ease. Good thing because the angler was almost ready to pass untill I told him we had color and he could finish it off. Even at that it was an even hard fought battle by both parties involved. The angler won http://www.ctfisherman.com/ubbthread...t/beerchug.gif

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With everything getting black except for the lightning we make a run for the barn just around noon. We made it to within 8 miles of the marina, in the river, before we got hit with a storm. The slower boats got hit in open water. Some 20 miles offshore. The wind was so strong that it ripped the poncho off one of the guys.

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Here is the circle hook we landed our first tuna on. We had luck with us on this one.

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The crew with our 2

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Jerry's 130 pounder.

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Life is Good!
Fishing is not a matter of life or death. It's more important than that.

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