Monthly Archive

Rueben Sanchez Jr. and Sr. combined for a pretty yellowfin tuna double, catching these two tunas to start our day yesterday. Both fish ate live baits, and weighed 94# and 102#.

 Capt. Brett

We caught this 175# blue marlin during the last few minutes of the 2 day mini-tournament for Jackson National. We put the trolling baits out on a line just 5 miles from the pass in about 400′ of water and had this marlin on in less than 10 minutes. Brian Low kept his head in the game and we got the blue to the boat in about 20 minutes.

Brian told me he’d caught a marlin before, so I didn’t try to toss him over. However, by the time we got back to the dock, his team mates (in cohots with capt. Beach) pulled the technicality that his previous billfish was a striped marlin, bot a blue, and therefore he could either jump or be thrown in the marina. It was ugly, be he took it like a man.

 Capt. Brett

What a fight. My crew for the 2 day Jackson Natl. Bank rodeo was in for a test with this tuna. We hooked the fish just before we got blasted by a thunderstorm. Through wind, waves, rain, and hail the guys switched back and forth on the rod. After a hour and a half, we finally started to make some headway.

I’ve heard some people theorize that tunas that fight the hardest usually have empty stomachs, but this fish story certainly puts a hole in that theory. We checked out his stomach and he had about a half gallon of baby blue crabs inside. What a pig.

 Capt. Brett

Ricky Richardson and his crew from Panama City, FL started the morning off right, catching a 128# and a 162# yellowfin back to back. They quickly asked for the bottom rods after the second fish was on ice. The bigger tuna was a real challenge, and fought like some of the big fish do on the Lump, staying up on the surface for half the fight. Several times we could see his sickle fin sticking out the water. These guys did great work on two tough fish.

 Capt. Brett

Chris put the hurt on this big yellowfin, catching this 148# yellowfin by himself in under half an hour.

 Capt. Brett

One of two blue marlins we caught this past week. This fish was 91″. Don’t be scared to fish the green water!

Mike and John Stout weren’t looking too stout, as they handed the rod first from father to son, and then to offshore novice and Corps of Engineers employee Paul. Paul rose to the task though, and got this 94 lb yellowfin to the boat.

This pretty sailfish ate the first live bait we threw out. The fish looks very tired in the picture, but we fought it for less than 5 minutes.

Ed Bows, sons Corey and Chad, daught Stepahnie, and Michelle had their hands full. After starting the day with a pretty sailfish, it took the whole family to land this nice yellowfin tuna. Then we added some amberjack, red snappers, and groupers to the box and called it a day.

Check out the 96# wahoo Jenkins caught on the maiden voyage of the new Twin Vee. This post is a little out of order, as we caught the fish on May 20, but these guys were sweating me on the picture. However, after defaming Joe B on the internet for just 24 hours, I finally got a copy of the picture. Awesome wahoo. I had hoped we might have one for the books, but a preliminary weight from a deer scale at the marina said we were off by just a few pounds and the boys said cut him up.

Good work Jenkins! 

Ashley Rhoney made the classic mistake of asking me what would be the best day to go tuna fishing. Well, I must have been confused, as I told him June 5th seemed like as good a day as any. Not only did we not catch a tuna, we didn’t even see one. But on the way in, when the snappers started stopping the amberjack rig (with a 24 oz. weight) on the way down, I told him it was time to make lemons into lemonade. Less than an hour later, we had a nice limit os snapper, several pretty groupers, and some jacks. Not bad for a last minute save.

After striking out at several honey holes, Heath and his guest had their hands full once I decided I could take them to the “real” spot. Two quandruple hook-ups and one triple-header resulted in 11 yellowfin tuna, with a lagnaippe dolphin thrown in.

Keith and  Adam V. and company had me sweating during the first half hour of this trip- that’s how long it took us to catch out 6 man limit of red snapper. That gave us plenty time to strike out on the wahoos, but we did score a few nice amberjack.

Zack Begnaud hefts up his pretty red grouper. His dad, Mark, had the biggest fish of the day: a 150+ lb bull shark caught on 50# line. We let the shark go because of the season closure. Even though we didn’t fill Mrs. Susan’s challenging targeted species list, the Begnauds still went hope with plenty fish and memories.

Kerrigan displays the best of several nice wahoos caught by Ronnie Bonner and crew. We caught the wahoo after filling their limit of snapper and catching some nice cobias.

Richard Lester poses next to his nice Warsaw grouper caught on the opening day of snapper season. I’m pretty sure he was saying something like, “Why should I grab it if he’s silly enough to hold it up for me?” It’s a nice picture, as it shows off the high dorsal fin spine and white flecks characteristic of warsaw grouper.

Snapper season opened with a bang, includding a hefty limit of the crimson nibblers up to 22.5 lbs, big amberjacks, and even a bonus warsaw grouper. Below, Inga and “The Wombat” show off a trophy snapper.

A lucky pallet helped Mike Williams land this nice tripletail, along with 3 others. I tried to tell him they were not good to eat, but he would hear it and insisted on taking them home.

Mr. and Mrs. Williams celebrated their anniversary aboard the Kraken. Wahoos, tunas, and even a few nice tripletail had them grinning all day.

Toby and Amanda Broussard made it look easy, landing two yellowfin triple-headers in a row. Despite Amanda’s complaints that she couldn’t hold on to the reel any longer, she did just fine.

Chris Finnnan makes a frightening grimace as he lifts up the first nice bull dolphin caught this year out of Venice- mid-March.

A C Cross and company display a respectable Lump catch from this past February. This past Lump season was much slower than the previous few years, but we still managed to wrestle out a bunch of blackfin tuna and a few nice yellowfin tuna.

Larry Douthit and crew were real troopers- they came down this past January for one of my first charters after the storms. These guys pictched a tent underneath a partially demolished condo, made a bonfire out of rubble, boiled shrimp, and told me it was the most fun they’d had in Venice. A few wahoos, tunas, and amberjacks later, and they were asking if they could bring the tent on their next trip too.