Venice, LA Yellowfin Tuna

We had a great trip last week with Capt. Eric Newman out of Venice, LA. We caught a total of 13 tuna between 60-100lbs, and one sailfish. Most of the tuna were caught on live baits, and several smaller ones caught on topwaters... Great trip with a fun group of fishermen.







Here's the video:

SPI Snook & Tarpon

I spent the end of last week in Port Isabel. We had a wedding to go to on saturday, so we made a little trip out of it. I got 4 fishing trips in. The first afternoon, we hit the jetties and found tarpon rolling pretty regularly. We caught a few kings & spanish mackerel before the tarpon finally started eating about 45 minutes before sunset. Between the 3 of us, we went 0 for about 15. They were biting mirrolures and other treble hook baits really well, and were positioned in a very specific spot on a current rip. We just couldn't keep them hooked up... 

The next morning, I went snook fishing by myself and caught a couple of pretty nice ones on a lunker punker. The mangrove snapper were also eating the punker....



We had a rehearsal dinner that evening, so I didn't get back to the jetties until the next morning. We were seeing big ones rolling early, and the guy I was fishing with broke off a 100+ lbr on the rocks after having it on for about 4 jumps. I rigged up some circle hooks with a 6" gulp jerk shad trailer and finally made it happen... we ended up going 2 for 4 that morning:






The next morning, the front had blown in and the jetties were blown out. We went out there, but had to turn back because the waves were breaking over the rocks. We ended up going to south bay and caught reds, trout, and a little barracuda on topwaters... on the way out, we found big jack crevalle busting bait in front of the coast guard station. We caught a couple of those, then called it a day. It had been a while since I put a tarpon in the sky, so it was a good weekend!

Back on board.

Well, it's been a while... and for a good reason. Fishing was tough for me all winter, and we have a new member of the family. Evangeline Rose Jud was born on 1/4/14.

The fishing is finally picking up! Barrett McClendon and I won the Tuesday nighter on Ray Roberts this week with a 3 fish limit for 14.69lbs, with my 7.76lb kicker.

I also caught a nice one on Lake Austin on Sunday while fishing with Lance Hale. This one was 8.02lbs:

One more good one from Raybob... This one was just under 8:

Here's a video of Barrett doing damage on a 5lbr on Ray Roberts: