VENICE, LOUISIANA
September 5-6, 2004
By Bo Crawford
Here is the fishing report as posted on rodnreel.com:
I finally made it down to Venice last weekend to experience some of the world famous fishing I have heard about for years. Bill Greene and I had our usual wager-- $20 for the biggest speck and $20 for the redfish with the most spots. I have wanted to fish Venice for years, but have been intimidated by all the perils of the area. In the end we only ended up getting lost once, ran a ground, and overheating the motor….pretty much the standard stuff you expect when inshore fishing the Louisiana Delta. I am sure that you veterans will laugh at the rookie mistakes I made on this trip.
Saturday morning we headed out with the intent of fishing Southeast Pass. On the way down I had the bright idea to save some time by using Bayou Raphael as a short-cut to get there. Well, I apparently took a wrong turn and lost the bayou. We decided to use the trolling motor and fish our way out. While we were doing this we found an area loaded with bass. We caught three bass and a red right off the bat. I was using a big topwater bait and they were knocking it out of the water. Had I known that this was a special spot, I would have stayed in the area longer and fished it harder. But this was my first time to fish Venice and I just assumed that Venice had fish like that everywhere. Man was I excited. Unfortunately, I soon learned that the fish are not stacked like that virtually everywhere. We spent several hours trying to snake our way back out to Pass a Loutre and didn’t catch another fish during that whole time.
We finally made it to Southeast pass and fished Bayou Chub minnows against the cane. We were fishing them like plastic worms. We ended up putting together our limit of reds, four flounder, and one speck. We had to work for them though. The fishing was not as fast and furious as I had hoped.
Sunday we went straight to the Delta Duck area where we had heard that the bass and reds were thick there. We saw several bass boats that looked like they were pitching worms and jigs. I probably would have done the same thing had I been in a bass tournament, but when I am fishing for fun I don’t have the patience to fish jigs like that. We fished some areas where the water was beautiful, but didn’t catch a single bass. We only ended up with two reds here.
We then decided to run down to South pass. We caught some reds, rat reds, and black drum in the mouth of a cut using jerkbaits and rattletraps. We hooked a few small ladyfish and a mystery fish. It weighed about three pounds had a forked tail. I thought it was a big ladyfish but my partner pointed out that ladyfish don’t have purple backs like that. Naturally it shook off before we could get it in the boat. We guessed is it was a small mackerel. But I was wondering if it could be small tarpon? Are tarpon ever caught in the river this time of year? I was fishing a Rapala Husky Jerk and it seems like I saw some guy on a TV show catching Tarpon on them in Florida.
We then went through one of the cuts to fish the other side. I assumed it would come out into a bay that looked like the dozens bays I have seen fishing out of Breton Sound Marina and Hi-Ridge. I was not expecting beach. We passed a man and his son who said they had caught them. He said we had to “go around”. I foolishly watched him drive away without asking him what kind of fish they caught or what exactly did he mean by “go around”. We watched that boat drive away like fools and spent the next thirty minutes asking ourselves why we didn’t just ask the guy a couple of more questions.
We ended up passing several alligators and admired the beautiful rosette spoonbills and went to the beach. We could see oil rigs in the distance and Bill asked if we should go fish them. I informed Bill that I did not want to go out in that stuff. I had never fished the area before and all the big water, with surf all around, made me nervous. About that time birds started working the surf right by us. At this point we had no choice but to make a cast.
I thought the area looked trout like so I picked up my trout rod that is spooled with 10lb test. I got a bite and set the hook thinking “that felt like a redfish”. At this point my reel started singing and I looked up to see this red swimming towards the beach as if he wasn’t hooked at all. He was approximately the size of a small submarine and I instantly knew this would take a while. For the next hour and a half I was on the front of the boat using my foot controlled trolling motor to gain ground every time my reel started to run out of line. I falsely told Bill to “get the net” at least six times. But every time I got the fish to the boat he would take off for another line peeling run.
All Bill could do was sit there and endure every fisherman’s worst fear…watching some other guy reel in a fish of a lifetime while all you can do is sit there. It is even worse in Bill’s case because he doesn’t drink beer. Had the situation been reversed I would have at least been able to relax and enjoy the show. Eventually Bill said, “Hey Bo, remember that oil rig you said you didn’t want to fish?....Look up. We are about to pass it.” That was not the first one we would pass as the redfish took us further out into East Bay.
We eventually landed the fish. He was 39’’ long and according to my digital scale he weighed 20 lbs 8 oz. I was very disappointed because I thought for sure he was going to weigh 30 lbs. According to the table Weight & Length chart on the site he should have weighed more than that. I will attach a picture and let you guys decide if my scale needs to be checked.
We went back to the beach and were able to catch several more Bulls on more appropriate equipment. It was an exciting end to a good trip. In the end Bill and I pushed on our bet since I had the big speck and he was able to catch a redfish that had 13 spots. Hopefully I will make it down there next month when I’m told the fishing can only be better.
Here is a link to that shows my GPS trail:
http://www.tmtanglers.com/Schedule/2004/Venice/Venice_Map_9_04.pdf
Here is a link for additional pictures from the trip:
http://www.tmtanglers.com/Pictures/2004/2004_Venice/Venice_Louisiana_Pictures.htm
Tight Lines.