Im not sure if it is the fact that I have not fished in almost two weeks or that I have not left my house much in two weeks but I am about to go Crazy!!!
The last two days that we were on the water was Thursday and Friday (April 7th and 8th), seas kicked up for Saturday and Sunday so I thought I would drive home for some much needed rest! (be careful what you wish for) I made it home Saturday night and my girlfriend had found a baby bird that had fallen out of the nest! I check online and the experts say just put it back in the nest, ok, easy enough! Get on a ladder, start fooling around for a while, think the mommy bird is gone, get down, get back up, fool around a little more then the bird comes hauling a$$ out of the nest (in my face) and scares the hell out of me, I fall off of the ladder (4ft) and sprain my ankle pretty bad so now I am trying to heal and not doing much! I figured if I cant fish, I can atleast talk about it right??
Thursday April 7th we had Bob Evans on the Looney Tuna! The whole crew was Navy guys, and gal!! The first thing that we see upon arrival is a huge bait ball with tuna busting on it hard! The tuna had the bait in such a pile that we were able to scoop up all of the bait that we wanted with a small net! Bait fish were pushed up out of the water atleast 4 inches! We figured, OK, we got this right? Wrong, by the time we got baits in the water the tuna were gone! Strange! We stayed for a good while trying to wait them out but nothing!! We hit three more rigs that morning just to find the same, Nothing!! It wasnt til late in the evening that we finally started to have a little luck! We had the boat very close to the rig catching blackfin on poppers, put a couple live ones out to catch more blacks and BAM!!! Yellowfin after yellowfin after yellowfin!! We ended up with ten yellows in all!! Let that be a lesson, Never Give Up! Unless you want to get in at a decent hour ofcourse! ha ha! It was about 8:30 when we pulled up to the dock!!
Friday April 8th
Robert and I picked up Jay Harper and his crew at a camp in Port Eads, cleared the pass and most of the fog! I figured bait would be a little hard to find so we had a few mullet on board, decided we would stop to pick up an AJ or two!! Put a four man limit in the boat and went in search of tuna!! Well, bait was not hard to find, it was impossible! Picked up a tuna here and one there then nothing! Put troll baits out and did pick up a wahoo, nice surprise!!
We decided to hunt for bait, hunt hunt hunt!! Finally found a few very small baits!! They will have to do!! We had four guys and I really wanted everyone to catch a yellowfin! Some were virgins so the hunt was on! It took a while but we hooked up and landed our third fish late in the day!! Couple of maybe hits and now down to three baits!! Put two of the three out and wait, wait, wait!! I saw the line pop from the rigger and had the hook set before the reel began to scream! Maybe a little early on my part but who cares, We were hooked up!! Crew done a great job, they landed the last fish! All four guys have fish right?? Well kinda! We drop the guys back off at port eads, unload all of the fish and the last tuna falls from the ice chest, on the camp dock and into the water!! After many failed attempts with a gaff we take off!! I sent Jay an email later in the week and he said they took a rope, tied it to another fish, threw it in the water to see where it went then took a rod with a couple of jig heads and weight, 2nd cast, caught the tuna again!! ha ha! Man, what a night! Back in Venice for 9pm!
Now do you see why I was happy to have a few days off!! I was tired! Had I known that I would be limping around now, I would have wanted to fish the next ten days!! If you have to use a ladder, please watch out for pissed off birds!!
I shot a couple of underwater pics of yellowfin tuna a couple of weeks ago on a customers disposable underwater camera! Check em out, not too bad! My New digital underwater dive camera just came in! Cant wait to shoot some video under the rigs to let everyone see how awesome it is under the oil platforms!!
Capt Gray and I still have open days on the boats! Give us a call or check out the site for info!!
Capt Josh Howard
225-572-7408
deepsouthcharters@cox.net
www.deepsouthcharters.com
