Ryan Stogner of Walker headed to Venice last week with his buddy, Jacob May of Baton Rouge, to catch speckled trout.
Things didn’t go the way the two anglers planned, but it worked out just fine as Stogner wound up boating the fourth-largest tripletail caught from Louisiana waters, a 37-pound, 38-inch monster.
“We had a trout trip cancelled on Wednesday (July 1) morning, and we were scrambling around, trying to find somebody who could take us on an afternoon trip,” Stogner said.
The search was successful. Stogner and May contacted Capt. Kyle Landry of Fish Venice Charters. He had the afternoon open, and he offered them two options: redfish or tripletail.
“He gave us a choice; he said they lived in two different area codes,” Stogner said. “It was easy. I’ve been trying to catch a tripletail the past three or four years; I’ve probably gone after them five or six times on trips with friends. It’s always been a bucket-list fish for me.”
Stogner and May met Landry at about 1:30 and immediately headed to the Gulf. They fished three satellite rigs for about 15 minutes without success, but when they arrived at a fourth rig, as Stogner said, “the stars all lined up.”
Monster tripletail
Fishing a live shrimp under a cork with spinning tackle in 8 feet of water, Stogner had been fishing for about 10 minutes when he got the first bite. It turned out to be a 25-pound tripletail.
“The captain told us it was a really big fish,” Stogner said. “He said he’d caught about 100 this year, and that one was the biggest.”
Landry boated a 12-pound tripletail a few minutes later, then told Stogner and May, “I think we’ll stay here for a little while.”
Ten minutes later, Landry noticed Stogner’s cork wiggle just a tiny bit — Stogner missed it completely.
“He told me, ‘He’s on,’’’ Stogner said. “I reeled a couple of times until it came tight, then I set the hook, and I tried to hand the rod to Jacob, because he hadn’t caught one yet. He said, ‘No, you hooked it, you reel it in.’”
Keeping the rod in hand, Stogner had trouble keeping up as the fish swam out from the rig toward the boat. Landry had backed the boat away from the rig, and when the fish swam close to the boat, he wasn’t quite able to get the net under the fish, which responded by making a reel-screaming run of about 70 yards, almost back to the rig. From that point, the fight lasted around five minutes, ending when Landry slipped the net under the fish and brought it aboard.
“He said, ‘That’s gotta be a 30-pounder,’” Stogner said. “I said, ‘Dude, he’s bigger than 30.’”
Getting an official weight
A check on a set of scales in Landry’s boat put the big fish at close to 40 pounds. They kept fishing for a while, left their lucky rig and fished three more on the way back to Cypress Cove Marina in Venice, where the fish was officially weighed at 37 pounds and measured at 38 inches.
If approved, it will be the new No. 4 among all-time Louisiana tripletails, according to records kept by the Louisiana Outdoor Writers Association. The state-record tripletail, caught in July 1959, weighed 39.5 pounds.
Back on schedule the next day, fishing with Capt. Jon Carter of Reel Shot Guide Service, they caught limits of speckled trout.
“It was the trip of a lifetime,” said Stogner, who dined on the big tripletail shortly thereafter. “I filleted him, and we fried some and had some blackened. It was great, especially the cheeks. They were as big as small cheeseburgers.
“Hey, a tripletail is just a saltwater sac-a-lait,” Stogner said, comparing it to the delicious, firm white flesh of the freshwater panfish.
