Fishing Reports

I'll try to brief, but in a nutshell the past four days have been MORE than "just a little crazy"! Several "first's" and lots of craziness.

The first three days we were to have "team Amigo" on board to fish the Faux Pas Invitational. In short these guys were GREAT!!! Great chemistry, each individual strength complimented the other team members, and the team leader, Glen was the glue that kept us all together. Sounds like a group of guys that have fished together for life right? Well come to find out they had never meet one another until the night before the tournament!!!

We were entered in the inshore and offshore division which meant we needed to get Tuna, Wahoo, and Dorado for the offshore and Cobia, Mangrove, and King for the inshore which shouldn't be a problem since we have three days to do it in right? Well we had this storm named Don that was due to enter the Gulf The first morning so every forecast had BIG seas predicted for the first two days. Every forecast except one. Impact weather showed a very small window that said we could make it to Tuna land early the first morning if we were prepared to pay for it big time on the way home. Well Team Amigo elected to GO FOR IT. We left early and had a great ride for a while, then it started getting bad. By the time we got to Tuna land it was easy four to six and getting bigger. I checked XM Weather and The storm had indeed entered the Gulf but had a projected path heading straight to Brownsville. GREAT, get the lines in the water. Never got two baits set as the Tuna were on the chew! The only problem was we had these bands of weather that kept coming through that were getting STRONGER with every passing band. The last band was packing 50-60 MPH winds and raining so hard you couldn't see the front of the boat. Deck hand Hunter asked me to please check the XM weather as he was sure we were on a collision course with a hurricane. I assured him the storm was heading for Brownsville but checked it anyway. OH CRAP!!! It was heading right for us!! The cursor showed we were 209 miles from the EYE of the STORM!!! TIME TO GO!! For Safety's sake (WHAT?) we decided to run back with Capt Mike Gray. The plan was to stay in visual and radio contact with one another, the only problem was that with the 12 footers that we were running in Mike's boat was out of site most of the time. We finally made it back to the West Delta and the seas had gone down to 4-5 .With plenty of time we figured it would be a great time to get our Mangroves. Later that day we weighed in and had the 2nd place Tuna and 3rd place Mangrove. Not bad for day one.

Day two we had no hope of making it to Tuna land so we went East in pursuit of Kings and Cobia. Team member "Sir Jigsalot" promptly put a King in the boat and we all cheered for joy!? It's just a "little crazy" to scream for a King. Later that day with no Cobia on the boat we went into the two minute drill, and yep, we found our shrimp boat on the way home with Mr Cobia under it! We weighed in the number two Cobia for day two.

Day three the seas went down a little so with Doarado and Wahoo still needed, and a bigger Tuna we set off for Tuna land. We pulled up to the automatic spot and the Tuna were EVERYWHERE!!! Great right? Well we couldn't make them eat? We down sized to 40lb leader and #5 hooks, still no takers. If we aren't supposed to catch Tuna today then the Lord must have something else in store for us so we set out to find out what that would be. Didn't know where I was going for sure, just going. Sure enough we came across a BEAUTIFUL line! GREAT! We still needed our Dorado and Wahoo. Baits in the water and the Dorado started coming aboard. All we need now is our Wahoo. That was not to happen, but the man in the blue suit showed up and in less than 30 minutes team Amigo had 175 lb Blue Marlin alongside the Poco Loco!!! With no time on the clock it was time to head back to the dock. When we returned we found that we had the only Blue Marlin in the tournament!!! GREAT!!! Well later some one else said they had one too. After careful review of both teams photos and video the tournament directors decide to flip a coin for first place.. WHAT??? That's just a little crazy? Coin was tossed, we lost so I guess we got second.

Day four, with the tournament over we were back to regular work with a new crew from Alabama. Great crew. Two Dads that were brothers and there children. Three young women and one young man. All of them including the young women were great anglers.

We meet at the dock at 5:00 AM and were preparing to head for the "automatic" Tuna spot when Capt One Eye pulled up alongside and asked which way we were going. " Is there really a decision?" I asked. That's when he informed me that the "automatic" Tuna spot was being towed to Texas and was probably half way there by now. WHAT??? That's CRAZY!!! He told me that after I left the day before they hooked onto it and were heading for Texas. Dang it I hate that when that happens!!

No problem. Took off in another direction to see what we could find. First stop we ran to was pretty dead but still managed to double up. Only this double was kind of crazy. One was a Bull Dorado and one was a stud of a Yellow. After that little flurry everything went dead so we headed for our second stop. Doubled up again. Again, one Bull Dolphin and one Tuna. Crazy. Then the Ship we were pulling them out from under pulled off from the rig and left?!! Can we catch a break? We caught some more Dorado and could have caught a lot more but both dads elected for another Tuna run so off we went. Next stop we decided to pull baits because Carley really wanted a Marlin. Second pass and BANG. Marlin on!!! The man in the blue suit didn't stick around for long though because he was only bill rapped. Oh well, they got a show anyway.

With no Tuna around this spot we headed back to the dock with a nice box of fish. We got back only to find Capt George at the cleaning table with nine Tuna. Come to find out Capt One Eye was mistaken, the automatic Tuna spot was still there. WHAT???!!! That's just CRAZY!!

Didn't I say I was going to brief? Sorry bout that. In a nutshell you GOTTA LOVE VENICE!!!

If you want in some of the fun, just give us a call.

I'm going to try to enclose some pics. Enjoy.

Capt Jerry Allen