Author Topic: Pops Soul In Tuna Town Venice Louisana (Read 6424 times)

Pops Soul · « **on:** March 14, 2017, 01:56:42 PM »

Hey Men if some of you have been keeping up with me on Facebook, you know Cathy and I headed south to meet up with our son Drew for a road trip over to New Orleans and then to Venice Louisana which is 76 miles due south. If you have never been there or thinking about going I'm going to supply you with some pricing and details of our trip. Because Drew fishes there often due to his job he new what to expect and made our trip a lot easier and more comfortable. The only unexpected cost was shipping part of our catch back home, lets face it your at the end of the world and the got you. We used Voodoo Charters. They have a home office that can set you up for the trip and they have lodging available, I think his pricing for a room with a bed and private bathroom was $85 a night, we opted and found a nice Houseboat to rent for $1000 dollars that slept 8 that was for 4 nights. In Venice all the condos are 3 stories up or it floats. Our charter boat picked us up at the front deck of the houseboat which was nice rolling out of bed and throwing our gear and jumping into the 39ft Yellowfin with Triple Yamaha 350's. Our Captain gave us our fishing options and said they had not been on the water for 12 days due to the weather and was out of touch what was going on. Option one do we want Giant Tuna which we may find 1 or 2 or smaller tuna but more likely to catch. We went for Option 2. When you leave the marina by boat it is maybe a mile Cruise to the Mississippi river, that's where the surprise came the air temp dropped about 15 degrees because of the cold water coming down the river, now is the time to bundle up and get cozy in your Bean Bag Chair. Captain Chad put the hammer down and it was a 30 mile ride just to the end of the Mississippi River. Then another 50 to the Oil Rig he choose to fish. Once at the oil rig we got out of our Grudens and sweatshirts to a comfy 71 degrees with a light breeze. They started on the troll and with in 20 minutes we were hooked up to our first Tuna which was the smallest of the day coming in at around 40 pds which Drew made short work of. After a couple more passes we started chunking 1 rod for each fisherman which we had 5 on board, Myself Cathy, Drew, Drew's wife Dory, And Drew's coworker Alicia an boy could this young lady but a hurtin on some fish! We started marking tuna at 300 feet down, once you hooked up most of the time the tuna would settle down at round 150 foot down and it was aching arms and backs and Battle on. I think Drew was the only one to get one to the boat with out handing the rod off at some point, and that was the smallest one of the day. We had 8 Tuna on Ice by 1:30 Pm and we arrived on the fishing grounds around 8:30 am. We got to see a lot of life in that short period from Dolphins slapping their tails to stun bait fish to a Tuna Frenzy on Top with Tuna leaping out of the water as high as the Boats T Top, we did manage to get one tuna on a top water plug which was AWESOME!The Frenzy was Discovery channel worthy but a little to far away for the camera on our phones. We left the tuna biting and headed to shallower water for some Red Snapper action the season had just opened and you were allowed 2 per angler. 20 oz's of lead in 150 foot of water

. Our captain made it hard on us when he said OK we need one more for our limit who's going to be the Hero......

So as we weeded trough shorts and Blacktip reef sharks we made our limit and headed for home. The Charter itself was $1700 PLUS fuel which for us came to another $600 they use Ethanol free gas which runs a dollar higher a gallon was $3.46 a gallon. We also threw the mate a $300 tip. Meals at the marina were reasonable and they will cook your catch which cost 8 bucks per person and that came with 2 sides of our choice. what a lot of folks don't think about is getting your catch home, we took a coffin cooler and another 60 quart cooler and ran 15 miles up the road to the dollar general for another small cooler. Our Captain and mate cleaned the fish removing the blood line and cutting it into baggable size chunks. Shipping the fish home includes vacuum sealing, freezing and packing in a cooler for next day delivery once it is picked up by Fed Ex, it cost us almost $500 bucks to ship 55 pounds of Tuna. The next day we did a inshore trip for Red Fish and Speckled trout. Voodoo charters set this up for us but sub contracts it to other guides. We fished with Dixie Riverside Charters, and Captain Patrick is a good ole Cajun boy born and raised in the Bayou. Once in the back waters 6 miles up the Mississippi he gave us a E ticket ride through those little cuts of the bayou. He did have a Garmin combo unit on board but most of the spots he cut though showed up on the GPS unit as being in the middle of a field

. We caught a lot of fish but nothing huge but a lot of fun. This trip was another $750 plus a tip and few bags of Fresh Tuna

We seen folks come back to the dock and get off boats and you could see they were unprepared for their experience, they would get off the boat cold and wet. Both Captains and mate we had were experienced and had a lot of hours under their belts and you could tell by how fast they reacted to different circumstances such as a broken Rod which happened to me while fighting a Tuna, they both graped the line even before I knew what happend and someone else accidentally bumped the lever drag to free spool and once again they saved the fish! When planning your trip there be prepared to for your trip to be cancelled I talked with different groups of anglers at the marina who had trips cancelled 3 times do to weather, our trip was originally planned for Tuesday and Wednesday but the Captain was in touch with Drew and said the weather window was better for Thursday and Friday and wanted to know if it was OK for us to reschedule. To me I think this is a sign of a top rated outfit. If anyone is thinking about planning a trip there and has questions shoot me a PM r give me a call I'll try to help you out.