Was an interesting weekend in venice. Started out on friday with Josh and his crew from florida. We hit up some close in spots with only barracudas to show for it before we went for the run. Got out to nakika area around mid morning and saw a fish or two. We pulled hooks on one decent fish early and then it kinda went quiet. We moved a little farther to the south and continued to chunk up the few blackfin we had caught. Right after we got there we hooked up and then had the barracudas eat a 30 pound yf at the boat. That sucked. We set up again and a little while later had another 30 pound yf get eaten at the boat. That REALLY sucked. Next fish on I went to full drag on the hookset and we managed to yank in a yf before it got eaten.
After that we had two more bites and luckily they were big enough tuna that the stupid cudas couldnt eat. One was about 70 and one about 50. Nothing else happened after that so too the dock we rolled.
I had chris and his crew on the boat the next day and I decided where we were the day before wasnt a good enough bite so I was gonna head to ram powell. We hit a shrimper on the way and pulled a couple bf but they werent too cooperative so we headed for the ram and found a dead rig. Marked one or two fish and that was it. Worked over to the weather bouy and we saw a 50 pound yf laying dead on top of the bouy. Never seen that before.
Pulled a little for wahoo with no bites and dropped down for ajs and quickly got a limit of six. Headed back to the shrimpers and found them all in shallow dirty water. Decided to head to some cobia areas and found plenty of them but they were finicky at first and after missing a few my guys got the swing of it and we started hooking up and landing nice cobia. Put five in the boat from 20-40 pounds and saw numerous other cobia and red snapper just milling around on the surface
On Sunday I had Josh and his wife and father in law on the boat. I had heard about some good shrimper action by the river the day before so off we went in search of the bite. First shrimper we pulled up on we got plenty of blackfin and saw a wahoo swim through our slick a bunch. Headed to bluer pastures and got on a new boat. Plenty of blacks on here and we had a box full so we started catching and releasing while waiting for some yf to show up. About 30 minutes into our drift Josh and Laura doubled up on some nicer fish and put a pair of 40-50 pound yf in the boat on the torsas. AFter that it was just plenty more blackfins so we moved on. First drift at the next boat I saw a decent yf down deep and right after we hooked up. It took a lot of line on its first run before it settled down and josh put the hammer on a 130 class yf.
Chummed a little more but only saw bf there so we moved around again and set up and plenty blackfin came up right away then the superstud showed himself. I grabbed a chunk and threw it out and he came up and ate it but right when he swallowed I looked down and saw a 500 pound yf cruise out from under my boat and forgot to engage the reel and missed the fish. At that point we had 4 yf rolling around our boat but josh picked me up and hooked the fish I missed (it had my chunk in it when we cleaned it) and the fight was on. We had a front coming but I was banking on we had plenty of time to land it in and make it in. It took about an hour on a 50 tiagra and a jpr standup rod but Matt and I stuck the gaff in the beast. I knew it was the biggest tuna I had ever put in the boat but wasnt sure how big it was so we packed the fish in the box and hit the pass right as the wind jumped to 20 knots
The tail of the tape was 225 pounds.
That night I talked Lee mclean, capt hoop and a buddy matt to go fishing so off we went again. First drift we had 20 yf rolling behind our boat and managed to lose almost every one of them to out of control hugeass sharks. We would fight them 15-20 minutes and then they would go crazy and the leader would pop. After a little while we figured out to catch the fish we would have chase every one down and get on top of them and put some heat on them and get them in. We put 2 of the last 3 good fish we hooked in the boat and headed to the house. We got in at 12 with 5 yf.
