[s][/s]There will be a foursome of us (2 boats) staying at Venice Marina September 15-18. We will be "self guiding" and hoping for the best. I am receptive to any advice. I talked to several guides today and the general consensus was that I was told that I would be wasting my time and money if I didn't hire a guide. I heard "the fishing sucks," several times as well. Just posting this in case anyone else would be in the area or had any tips. I cleared out my PM's just in case.

Where do you plan on fishing, what are you targeting, and how much fresh is coming down the river?

i would think all the fresh water would hurt fishing.

It will, but deposit has been made and I won't have any more vacation time until next year so I am going regardless. I figured I will be able to catch something in 4 days.

Current flow rate is 593,00 cfs so I'm pretty sure the inshore fishing will be less than stellar. I have never been so I don't have any set plans. I was planning on heading out to the mouth of red pass and starting there and working along the outside grass edges. I would like to hit a couple of the close offshore rigs if the weather permits, but mostly targeting reds, trout, and I hear the triple tail are starting to come into the shallows as well. Realistically, I am just going fishing for anything that bites with the exception of snapper since the season is closed.. I have plenty of artificials and gulp alive shrimp, but plan on catching some mullet and even croakers to use as bait if I can find some. I have a 55 gallon grayline tank that I plan on putting to work while I am there. My initial plan to to look for bait and then start fishing near the bait.

It's Venice you will catch some fish.
The guides know how to navigate the channels and where the fish go but you can catch some fish.
I would think the close rigs and deeper outer grass lslands would have some big reds. Get you some live crab and hang on.

Does anyone know if Red Pass is safe to run?

Go out straight south first rigs hold grouper and red snapper if you can make it 50 miles out you gonna get some good tuna! I would troll for Dorado and marlin around grassy lines or anything floating in the water.

Go out straight south first rigs hold grouper and red snapper if you can make it 50 miles out you gonna get some good tuna! I would troll for Dorado and marlin around grassy lines or anything floating in the water.

Report?

All the slot reds you could want in the wagon wheel. That's were we saw what I'm sure were most of the guide boats. Hit some rigs in 20' west of Red Pass and caught Spanish mackerel, speckled trout, and bull reds. You have to weed through a ton of hard heads in both those areas though.

Found a cut in pass of Lout're where the river was flowing strong into the bay that was holding monster bull reds, rays, and hooked one long slender silver fish that was over 6' long that came unhooked while we were trying to dig the gaff out of a compartment. The next day the same spot held 4-6' alligator gar so we headed further into the gulf and stopped when the graph lit up with big fish in 5.5' of water. We started chumming menhaden and caught about a dozen black tip sharks up to about 60" and a couple jack crevalle up to 40". Then we ran out of daylight and had to make most of the 25 mile boat ride back to Venice Marina in the dark. Jack crevalle can make a 250 yard run pulling 20 lbs of drag faster than anything I have ever hooked into before. I was thoroughly impressed. They made the sharks seem easy to catch.

All the sharks and jacks I caught were on a 3000 class Cabelas Salt Striker spinning reel on a 6.5' Colmic MH bass rod spooled with 30 lb Sufix 832 with a 4' 124 lb wire leader and a 12/0 circle hook. The setup made the fights a lot more fun than the beefed up tackle I was told to use. Spanish mackerel seemed to be their favorite cut bait.

Most of the reds were caught on cut menhaden or mullet on a 3/0 kahle hook. We lost about 20 fish on circle hooks ranging from 3/0-8/0. Stopped losing them when we switched to kahle hooks. I was using a 2 oz holographic slab and jigging aggressively when I was fishing the shallow rigs west of Red Pass.

We never made it to the deep rigs. Seas were a little too rough for our 21' bay boats so we never went offshore.

Jacks can be a lot of fun.