Fishing the Lump in Venice – short report

[Drifter]

Paradise Outfitters
Captain Bill Delabar
Jan 11 & 12

We just arrived back in Austin but here’s a short report with pics to follow tomorrow. We canceled last week due to high seas but managed to get two days offshore this week. Gimmedeal, Safisher, Drifter, Johss, and Wayne.

Day one – rough seas, no blue water at the lump and no fish. We headed further out until we found better water. We hook up with a small YFT and a Mako takes him right at the boat! We rig up with wire and the fight is on! Took about 45 minutes but the Mako was ours. We estimate it weighed about 125 pounds. At least we didn’t get skunked!

Day two – seas were calm and the lump had blue/green water. It didn’t take long for the bite to get hot!
Gimmedeal – 115 lb YFT
Drifter – 105 lb YFT
Wayne – 80 lb YFT

Wayne caught 3 Amberjack to about 70 lbs and I caught a fourth. Nick fought a fish for over 30 minutes that turned out to be a huge shark – well over 100lbs. After that, we kept catching Bonito and sharks so we left in search of Wahoo.

We’re trolling and Wayne gets a hookup. As we’re reeling in the other two lines, Gimmedeal gets hit while bringing in the lure and the fight is on! Turned out to be a 75lb Wahoo.

3 YFT
4 Amberjack
2 Wahoo
1 Mako

It was a good trip!

We enjoyed fishing with Bill and hope to charter with him again.

[SpecialK]

Thats a nice day of fishing!!!
YOu got some good variety of eating ahead of you. Hopefully after this coming weekend I will be arriving back in Austin with similar reports!

[gimmedeal]

We had a great time. Friday was sporty to say the least. A cold front had blown in at 1 am and we had low pressure, wind, and sloppy seas. We would have got skunked but late in the day Louis fought and landed the mako.
Saturday we had a decision to make. Capt Delabar said he could take us deep to floaters but he thought we might be okay at the lump. We opted for fishing the Lump and Delabar made some passes checking the area for fish and set us on anchor. We ended up on anchor with maybe 30 other boats. We chunked in the traditional manner and Delabar put a Frenzy kite up for live mullet. Chunking accounted for two of the YF and the kite got Louis' fish. We had a great time and both Louis and I got personal bests on YF and I got my biggest wahoo.
The Lump season has started, it wasn't red hot yet but the YF are there. A weirdness, we didn't catch a single blackfin all day.
If you ever get a chance to fish with Bill Delabar, give him a try. He was hard working, personable, and knowledgeable. I think we had the hot Capt on Saturday, other boats came in and didn't do near as well.
Wayne and I both got a chance to fish our new BarBar Super Seekers and they performed great.
We stayed at the trailers and Venice Marina and Nick and my cabin didn't have hot water ( even in south Louisiana this was poor), but we ate like kings and drank too much. It was a good trip with pics to follow.
I was bound and determined to fight my YF without a harness and did so. I got SPANKED in the process.


Fred

[Drifter]

Here's a few pics.


Group Picture
Fishing the Lump.jpg

Gimmedeal
Gimmedeal YFT.jpg

Drifter
Drifter Mako.jpg

Wayne
Wayne AJ.jpg

Drifter
Drifter AJ.jpg

[SkeeterRonnie]

good lookin fisheseses!! good job guys!

[Bellyups]

Great job guys!! Nice variety of very good fish!

[Bret]

Man, glad yall got to get out both days!! Nice mess of fish..

[Ragman]

Great report and pics! Thanks for posting!

This is the first I remember reading of AJ's on the lump?

How were they caught?

[gimmedeal]

The AJs were really a gimme deal. They rigged a bent butt rod amidship on the port side so that it wouldn't interfere with the chunking or kite. Send down a live mullet and crank up an AJ. They didn't have a rig to run to. I think Wayne would still be cranking em up if it wasn't for limits and regulations and like that.

Fred

[fonz]

Nice Pictures!!!