Texans invade Venice(long)

[Bret]

We had been watching the weather for Venice and it didn’t look good. We were scheduled to fish with Reel Peace on the 19-20. The 18th looked better than the other dates so Jared checked with Devlin and we were able to move it up one day. Jared was able to find enough of the group, that could leave early, to charter two boats for the 18th.
Jared was riding with me so we plan on leaving Dfw at 5am. Well, at 5am it is snowing and sleeting with about a ½ in accumulation. We have it all loaded and leave DFW by 6am. Driving was slow at first but the farther south we got, the better it was. We rolled into Venice about 5.30 Wednesday evening and were able to meet 3 of reel peace’s captains. Real nice guys by the way. We meet up with the others as they arrive. We had
Fred(gimmedeal),Nick(safisher), Jason(Argo), and his friend, Beau in the group, The others would arrive later Thursday.
We left the dock at 6am on Wed and headed out of tiger pass. The ride out was uneventful. Stopped at a bouy to make bait, but the current was ripping, so on to the lump we went. We arrive to decent seas. 2-4s. With a 2 guys fishing and one cutting chunks, we started catching several bonitos right away. Had several cutoffs( The hoos are thick out there now) Jared put a blackfin in the box, as did I. Then Nick hooks up on a bonito chunk and it’s a nice fish. 50-60lb AJ. I pick up a small YFT to break the seal. And end up boxing 2 more approx 60lbrs. The current and winds were not in our favor as we were chunking off of the same side of the boat. So Devlin, puts one rig up forward with a 12oz trolling lead rubberbanded about 8ft up. Cut pogies were the ticket.
We hooked several quality fish that way but they spit the hook somehow. (My details are a bit sketchy as I have had little sleep) So Jared or Nick Correct me on the details)
Jared caught a 80-100lb dusky shark later in the day. And on the last chunk we hooked a good fish and Nick brought a 60ish wahoo to the boat. Nice way to end the day. The ride in was nice, until we hit the fog about 8-10 miles out of tiger pass.
By lump standards it was a slow day, but by mine it was a great day.
Now the other boat did well, but I will let Argo or Gimmedeal give y’all the details.

Day 2(Friday) Jared and I checked buoyweather and the forecast was not good,
marginal early in the day turning really bad in the afternoon. The rest of the guys had arrived and were ready for the day. Devlin decides to make a go of it. We make it out of tiger pass and were greeted to some bumpy seas and 15kts of wind out of the north. We got wet on the way out and seas were building as we arrived at the lump. Devlin sets anchor and Jared gets our chum line started. We new right away it was going to be a rough day. The seas were 4-6 and getting bigger. One of our crew was sick, two more couldn’t stand up. One of them never attempted to fish. His boots made him look like he was on ice. The other fell nearly every time he picked up a reel. I had planned on jigging and throwing poppers but was not possible with the wind and seas.. So it was mainly Jared and me working the chunk lines. Lots of bonita. One small yellowfin. WE hooked a nice hoo but the guy fell down twice while fighting the fish and lost it. Devlin made the right call to call it a day.
I think we had about an hour and a half on the hook. We at least caught one of the targeted species. The ride in was wet and cold. The air temp had dropped to around 50 with 20-25kts of north wind... The seas had built to 6-8 with the occasional 10ft square wave. But that 30 Glacier bay handled the seas very well, running 12-20 kts and never took a wave over the bow. I would have lost most of my teeth had I been out there in in a monohul, on the ride in.. I was very impressed with that boat. You could stuff at least 3 full grown adults in the fish box..

We got back to the dock, drank some coffee, settled up , loaded up, said our good byes to everyone and started the trek back home. We arrived back into dfw about 1am..

The other boat did well in the short period of time we were there but I will let them fill in the details of that one too.

I would like to thank Jared for organizing this trip. I also would like to thank the guys at Ocean Tackle for providing us your gear to try out. Unfortunately the weather conditions didn’t allow us the opportunity to jig or throw poppers effectively. I had a great time, learned some new techniques and met some great guys. I am certain I have left out some important details, so someone fill in the gaps.

Oh yeah, Thanks to Reel Peace charters. Devlin and his captains are top notch… I will fish with them again.

[MrBill]

Glad to see you guys caught some fish. That's a nice haul for one day. I've heard the lump has been slow to it's normal January standard. What brand of boots were the one's that worked, and what brand was so slippery? Sometimes its the surface of the deck.

Your right about one thing, if you can't stand up it's time to head home. I gather it was because of the seas and not whiskey.

[Snagged]

Glad you caught some fish and sorry about the bleeping weather.

[Bret]

Mr Bill, one of the guys had some duck hunting boots.. no deck soles. It was like he was on ice.. and it was rough.. had we not had the issues with the other part of our crew, we would have fished longer.. the other boat had 5 yellowfin in the boat in 1.5hrs. I will let them tell the story..

As far as the weather. its always a crapshoot fishing the lump in winter.. Glad we got one good day in, just disappointed that we had a couple of larger models come unhooked. I did have a few shots of whiskey when we hit the dock friday... I about froze my ass off on the ride in. My foul weather gear which I have had for 20 yrs is no longer waterproof. (found that out the hard way)

[bpitcher]

Glad yall at least made it out and caught some fish. Nothing worse than bad weather and no fish except a day at work!

Lets hear some more about the new GB!

Brad

[Pope]

You also have a nice load of fresh tuna and hoo. Can't beat that and I admire the hardcore attitude.

[PiePuncher]

Nice catch. I cleaned up a slab thanks to Jared and the sushi was awesome! Awesome guys.

[gimmedeal]

Headed out for Venice on Wednesday so we could fish the Thursday window. Got in and met up with Nick, Jared, Bret, and Beau, with Jason (Argo) still en route. It was decided that Jason, Beau, and I would fish with Capt Mike Ellis and Trey (the mate) on 26' Glacier Bay and Jared, Bret, and Nick would fish on the 30'. Thursday am we loaded up and headed for the Lump. Set up to chum and got some bonita right off. The tuna were conspicuously absent though. Last year if you sent a chunk back, you'd be on a BF or YF, Thursday they were few and far between. As luck would have it, wahoo took up the slack. Jason and Beau landed 3 between 65 and 90 lbs, big wahoo. We also limited on AJ's between 35 and 60 lbs. Eventually we picked up a few tuna, 2 chunky(lump chunky) BF, and my third and largest to date YF, about 80 lbs. Beau also caught a couple of beeliners for good measure. All fish on chunk, on fluorocarbon. We got hooks bit off 3 or 4 times but not that often. Tried jigging some, but without success. Didn't get to use the popping rod that TJ sent. It looked great but the opportunity never presented itself. Seas were probably 3 to 4 foot all day, and a little sloppy. Our deckhand Trey got sick for a while. We didn't have room in our fishbox for my YF so we had to hand him over to the other boat. When we pulled next to it, I thought they were chumming for cops, there was a glazed donut floating about 20' behind the boat. Was tempted but restrained myself. We headed back with the other guys still fishing. We ended up with a really good catch (and really, wouldn't you really rather eat wahoo?).
That night when everybody got in it looked like Argo had big fish with the largest wahoo, I got big YF, and Nick and Argo looked to have similar AJ's.
We had to fend for ourselves for dinner, Venice is a third world country when it comes to food, but we knew that heading out and came prepared. Bret seared steaks and grilled chicken, I stir fryed vegs and made fried rice in the wok and we had seared YF and YF and wahoo sashimi. Nick brought the wine and we ate pretty good.
The infamous day two. We knew from the forecast that the seas were getting worse thru the day but decision was made to get out and hit it hard. Ellis told us the day before that lately trips were getting their tuna by 11:30. Argo, Beau, Jose ( a friend of Argo's on his first offshore trip), Nick, and I were going to fish with Capt Rimmer on a 30' Gravois, an aluminum cat powered by twin Yamaha 250, 4 strokes. Rimmer told me that it weighed 4000 lbs less than the 30' GB and burned less fuel. Not a frilly boat, but rugged and functional. The ride out went fast, we made good time. Once there, we hit the chum churn and started a chunk slick. We caught tuna pretty quickly, had 5 YF in less than 2 hours. They were all from about 25 to 50 lbs, Nick getting the biggest. The seas, that had started out maybe 4 to 6 were getting worse rapidly and temps dropping and it was time to go. It sucked but it was the right decision. A pelican trying to pick up our chunks behind the boat got swamped by one wave. Our trip back was long, cold and tested our foul weather gear.
I gotta say, I still haven't caught my 150, may never. I am up to 80 though and if I get a chance to go next year, hold me a place Jared. Thanx for putting it together.
Argo has the pics from our fishing and I'm sure he'll be posting them up shortly.

Fred

[jaredchasteen]

The trip was a sucsess in my book, we came hgome with fish just not as much as usual. The first day was fun with only 3 anglers plus the captain on board. The ticket on the first day was a carolina rigged pogy, freakin insane. i think the sinker wouls slide down the line and dislodge the circle hook. We lost about 4 yft on this setup after about 30 seconds but at least it was producing. When the bite was slow we were trying everything even using water bottles as bobbers(which did produce a strike). Ocean tackle wqas kindf enough to give us some jigs to try out, i didnt get to fish them however the first day NIck caught a king(one of two that we saw the entire time) and several bonita on them, as well as got wahoood on one. The wahoo were all over our slick the first day as we lost at least 15 hooks. At the end of the day we trolled for 25 mins to see if the wahoo wanted some lures. WE had a double knockdown and both came unbuttoned. While we were trolling we saw a school of HUGE tuna crashing topwater for about 20 seconds they wre larger models creating splashes 10 ft high. I think there was only one or two boats at the lump that had fish over 100 that day.

On the second day we awoke to drizzle and a north wind, i should have called it but i didnt know that half of my crew would react to large seas. When we broke the jetties we were greeted with a nice 1.5 ft wind chop that made the ride very uncomfortable. This was protected waters so we werent even in the rough stuff yet. The seas were a sloid 4 untill we reached wd143 and the blue water were it was 6s with a few 8 thrown in. Capt set up anchor and i started chummin with day old pogies(i still stink). First chunk produces a bonita so it looks promiosing, we put a few more in the boat then we get a good strike and give the rod to don since me and bret caught on the first day(this was a mistake) it was a wahoo that i hoookes at least 100 yards back before don knew what was going on it had already went 50 yards in front of the boat, no pressure kept on him you guys know what happens next. he fell twice while on this fish with a tiagra 50w on a cape fear fod nouncing on the deck. Captain wasnt pleased that people couldnt stand up and i think we knew then but decided to try and stick it out a little longer. Me and bret then took over all chunking and chumming duties as our crew just couldnt stand up in 6 ft seas. This day would have produed good action on yft as i caught a small 25#er and the other boat had 5 in 1.5 hours fishing. By the time we pulled anchor the seas had built to solid 6s with 10 thrown in. TYhe ride home was cold and slow, however we still made 12-20 knots in the glacier bay.

Thanks to Capt. Devlin, Captain Mike Ellis, Capt. Rimmer Covington, Ocean Tackle, and cypress Cove marina for making it all possible.

[CaptEddie]

Sounds like yall had fun. Your right there was a limited amount of 100 pluses that day I had one, Bill delabar had one and daryll couvillion had one.