Mostly hunting

It's been really nice getting to be home with my wife , and two boys. We had some really good duck hunts, and great Thanks giving! Our annual ritual for thanksgiving is to migrate to Fort Clark in Bractetville Tx. This place is very historic, and a great place to hang out, not to mention the fact it is overrun with deer! The highlights of the trip would have to be my Nephew got a really nice 8 point.....nice by any standard, but he's only 10 yrs old! Another highlight was my daughter in laws first Blackbuck antelope! Very nice. Now were back home, sausage is in the freezer, and duck hunting is again the main focus.
We haven't fished, and don't plan on it till maybe a few wahoo trips in January, and some Tuna/Wahoo trips in February.
I'm living the mild winter we are having this year, and hoping it continues. It seems like every year we have a mild winter the fishing kicks off much faster, and with a vengeance!!
We're heading back to deer camp after Christmas for more family time, and a little more sausage on the hoof.
Hope everyone has a great Christmas!!
Capt. Jerry Allen
www.pocolococharters.com

Quite while your ahead

We just finished running the last two trips of the year, we had seven trips to run, but the weather got us again so we had to cancel the last five days of fishing. The sad thing is that the two days preceeding the last two trips we ran had been canceled by us, due to the bad weather NOAA bad forecast. As it turned out the weather was great, and the fishing was even better. The first of the two days was a Saturday, it was a little tough fishing, but Sunday turned out to be the best day of the year! Turns out a giant ball of Poggies was being escorted around the Gulf by an equally large school of giant Yellowfin. The guys that got to fish it were rewarded with incredible catches! Capt. Josh Howard had 11 giants and the rest of the fleet had anywhere from 4-9 giants in the ice hole when the day was done. I really hated missing it all but the crew I had for those days had a two day drive to get to Venice, and when it came time for them to either head this way or throw in the towel, NOAA was saying it was a no go!? Frustrating!!!!
The two days we did get to run were absent of Poggie balls, and shrimp boats as its late enough that most of the shrimp are out o the marshes and offshore so we resorted to running long like we do all summer, but without the daily intell we have during the summer because we'd been land locked for over a week. We were all basically flying blind, and hoping for the best. We picked away at them the first day, and really struggled the second day .
All in all we had a great year, and caught lots of fish with great friends and anglers, just kind of sad to end such a good year on such a down note. Guess November is for Hunting! Now I remember why I don't like booking trips in November!!
Capt. Jerry Allen
www.pocolococharters.com
409-651-0765

Shrimp boat season

This shrimp boat season has been odd to say the least.  For a short period of time the shrimp boats were in a normal spot, and they held plenty of fish so all is well, right? ..... That lasted about two days , and then we went back to re inventing the wheel every day. The old saying "every day is different" was a understatment!! Very seldom we did the same thing from the day before. The good news is that every day we'd find them!! More days than not though, I felt like it was 4th and long with under 2 minutes in the game before we'd finally get em. We were rewarded with some really nice fish while fishing in some really weird places using some really weird techniques. Some days chunks were the answer, others it was hard tails on the bomb that would tickle there fancy, and other days it was 2 foot long mullet swimming on the surface they wanted. The two best fish for the last little stretch were a 154 lb. , and a a 177 lb. Yellowfin. Along they way we picked up more blackfin than I care to count, and lots of yellowfin in the 70 - 100 lb. range .
The day we caught the 177 lb. was one of the more memorable days, not so much because of that fish, rather just the day in general. The weather was better than great, the crew was better than great, and we wound up fishing a green on blue rip that was loaded with giants!!! The first fish we hooked dumped a 50 wide????  Then we up with the big boy and and another slob, that kept us buisy for over an hour. While we were hooked up to these big boys, the giants started destroying blackfin tuna. After breaking off one of the giants and landing the other, we imeadiatley deployed two more baits while the sun was getting low in the horizon. Almost instantly we doubled again, broke another giant off, but the other stayed hooked  till well after dark. When we finally got it close enough to see it we were a tad bit scared to see a VERY BIG MAKO!!! It was so big the only way to move it was for the angler to lift with all his might while I would simultaneously hand line the fish. Jimmy was scrambling to get the the harpoon ready to fly when the leader finally gave up!!!
No matter, I was loving life and living having the opprotuity to fish in an aquatic version of Jerrasic park!!!! The land of the giants!!
Thea latest cold front is going to keep us off the water for a while, but can't wait to get back after em.
Capt. Jerry Allen
www.pocolococharters.com

Venice fishing

I recently went to my nephews wedding in Dallas, and my Deck Hand /Captain ran the boat while I was gone. He did very well considering the fish totally disappeared from where they had been when we left them.
He regrouped after some head scratching, and found them in some of the spots we fished at the end of the summer. He said he ha great groups of people and found fish for all. The best one was a 163 lb. Yellowfin!!! The crazy thing about it was he hooked it on a popper and spinning rod. Even though the reel was a Stella..... that's too big a fish for a spinning rod..... well 31/2 hours after hooking it they put the beast on ice!!!
The wind has been blowing for about 5 days now , but looks like we can get back on the water tomorrow. More reports later.
Capt. Jerry
Poco Loco Chatrters

Fishing Report

We've been blown off the water since Monday, but prior to us leaving, the tuna fishing was still VERY GOOD, although lots of things have changed since my last report. The first thing that changed is the location of the fish.... I wish we could put fences up out there, and keep the fish in one spot, it would sure make things easier. The other thing that's kind of weird is the insane number of juvenal yellowfin that have moved in. I guess its good to see that many little guys for the future, but they get pretty annoying when they eat our live baits before the big boys can get to them. The last day we fished was the worst. We must have caught 25 Yellofin, and only had 5 keepers. Another curve the Tuna added was that the big boys have evidently improved there eye sight. We noticed that every time we bucket tricked them they would eat all the free bees, but would not eat a hook bait.....?? As soon as we dropped down to 30lb. leader we started hooking them. As you can probably guess this is a pretty low percentage success game, but at least we were hooking them. We still wound up landing 75-80% of them on light leader, it just took a lot longer to land them cause we couldn't put much heat on them.

I guess the best news I have to report is that the shrimp boats are here and already have fish on them. I personally did not get to participate in any of the shrimp boat action, because we had our own little secret stash of fish on a floater, and had them to ourselves, but the guys that did chase the boats were rewarded with plenty of Blackfin the first two days , and got on some nice Yellows the last day they did it. Capt. Peace told me when he left them the last day, he still had a large school of them under his boat, but he'd run out of willing anglers!

We have plenty of open days in September so if you'd like to get in on some shrimp boat action or just regular Tuna fishing give us a shout.

I almost forgot... on the weird side.... we landed a sailfish last week. We see plenty of Marlin, but not many Sails in Venice, I guess cause its so deep, and they tend to like a little shallower water. At any rate it was a nice surprise, and we got some nice pics.

 

Capt. Jerry Allen

 

Gotta Love Venice

Gotta love Venice!!

We just finished up with a few days of fishing, and the last day was truly insane!!

The first couple of days were good, as we were finding plenty of Blacks, AJ's, and the occasional Yellow, but Sunday just went off. We started the day off like usual, chasing the mobile FAD's, and finding plenty of Blacks. It didn't take too long before we had about all the Blacks we wanted, so we decided to take a lunch break. We were just drifting around, enjoying the day when I happened to look at the sounder. WOW!! We had fish all under the boat! We started feeding them, and the Blacks came up really fast, and then the Yellows showed. Lots of them, and all of them BIG!!! We put one bait out, and a Yellow swallowed it up. The crazy thing was that during the fight, all the other fish that had decided to live under our boat just followed us around. After putting the first one in the boat we started feeding the fish again, and yep, the Yellows were still there. Hooked another and followed him around , while all his buddies stayed with us. We put him in the boat and satrted the whole process over again, hooked another, and yep, the rest of them followed us. CRAZY!

About half way through the fight the XM weather alarm went off, telling us we had a front coming with 60 MPH winds, lightning, and hail so after getting our last little friend in the boat we headed North, leaving all our other new found freinds behind.

We wound up the day with 3 Yellows all over a 100lb, with the largest weighing in at 188lb. not to mention all the Blacks from earlier in the day.

The coolest thing came when we got back to the dock, only to find that everyone got on them. Capt Eddie had 2 over 100 lb with his largest going 224 lb, Capt Peace had one about 170lb, and Capt Bret had one about 150 lb!!

All in all we had 7 giant Yellows laying on the dock and it was 2:00 PM!!
Gotta love Venice.

Capt Jerry Allen

Fishing Report

We're still alive and doing well. Our boat's and camp are all good, and we finally got back on the water this past weekend. The shrimp boats are in place and they are holding some fish.... just not many Yellowfin. In two days of fishing, Capt Lee's 150lb Yellowfin was the one and only Yellowfin caught!? The boats seemed to have plenty of Bonita, Sharks, and a hand full of Blackin, but the only ones that seemed to be hungry were the Sharks. I hate it when that happens!

Saturday was so rough we really couldn't run farther than the boats , and after working them over for more than long enough we ran back into the relative safety of the West Delta and spent the rest of the day fishing for AJ's and Cobia. The AJ's were easy and hungry. Gotta love em!

The Cobia were around, but not in big numbers. I think we went 4 for 5 the first day, but those numbers should really improve, along with the shrimp boat fishing as soon as the coming cool fronts to drop the water temp.

Sunday the water was much better. We started the day off chasing the shrimp boats again (slow learners) with not much better luck than the day before. We had a couple of Blackfin in the box when we headed South. Not much better luck out that way either. I was on the radio with the other Captains , and it seemed like we were all trying to figure out where all the Yellowfin had gone to. We found out when we got back to the dock. Seemed like Capt. Willy B nailed them to the wall!! I was really glad to see them, just wished they would have been on my boat. I guess thats what happens when no ones been on the water for two weeks. The good news is that from here out we should be able to stay on them, and it wont be loing before the shrimp boats start paying off. Cant wait!!
Give us a call if you have the itch.

Capt Jerry Allen