Most of the readers out there have heard that Venice, La. is the redfish capitol of the world. Yes I know that there are redfish in every coastal spot in Louisiana. I have fished in most areas and caught reds in all of them. However, Venice, La. is at the mouth of the largest River in the country. This River brings tons of nutrients south and deposits them in and around the River Delta. These nutrients feed the organisms that feed the small fish. This starts the “food chain” that leads to the red fish and up to the “bull reds”.
Last month I got a call from Carey Swope from up in Maine. Now I get a lot of charters from all over the country, but Maine is a long way from here and I’ve never received a request from that state. Carey told me that he was the former Vice President of the Maine Chapter of CCA and had served on their board for over 10 years. He, also, told me that he had fished all over the world and had caught many trophy fish including tarpon, snook, steelhead, stripers, etc. However, he had not ever caught a red fish, and especially a bull red. He had heard about Venice, La., so he contacted the local state CCA and was given my name and number. He now wanted to book me with the specific intent of catching “bull reds”. I jumped at the chance to show him what a great fishery we have in south Louisiana.
Carey and his wife, Ann, spent several days in New Orleans enjoying the sites and food and then drove to Venice to meet up with me. The sport fishing in Louisiana brings many tourists down to our great state. This tourism is great for our state and our economy. We met at Venice Marina around 5:30 am and set out to try and find the fabled “bull red”.
My first stop was a bummer; very muddy water from a thunderstorm the night before. Now reds can handle muddy water, but it had moved the bait fish out. No bait, no fish. The wind was strong out of the west, so I couldn’t fish the famous rock jetties at south west pass. I had to fish the east side to try to stay out of the wind. I cranked the big Skeeter up and ran south about 12 miles. I was looking for cleaner water, calm seas, and bait. After about 2 hours, “pay dirt”. I caught the first one: a nice spotted bronze back about 35 inches long. I set up a drift along an outer bar, and before long both Carey and Ann joined in the fun. We were fishing medium spinning rods with 50 pound braid. At the terminal end I tie a “noisy” cork and then 2 feet of 30 pound mono with a very good ¼ once jig head. We found that a purple and chartreuse eel was what they wanted that day. We also encountered an occasional Jack Cravel. This brute fish just spiced up the battles we were doing with the bulls.
About 1pm the wind picked up to a point that it was unpleasant to continue fishing. We tied up the rods and headed north for an hour long ride through some of the most beautiful scenery in the country. I sat there thinking how great it was for me to be able to introduce this lovely couple to the wonders of south Louisiana. All of this happened because we truly are “The Red Fish Capital of the World”.
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