One of the Gulf’s most-successful charter captains says things are looking up for the fishery this fall.
The irritating blare of the alarm clock startled me awake at 2:45 a.m. I intentionally set it for that time, figuring I could quickly wash my face, get dressed and be out the door in 15 minutes.
My tackle was already loaded in the truck, and a 3 a.m. start would allow me a good 2 1/2 hours to make the drive to Fourchon and get my gear stored aboard one of Steve Tomeny’s boats for our annual excursion into the Gulf of Mexico.
“Be at the dock for 5:30 a.m.,” they said, stressing the importance of a timely arrival.
Once a year, the honchos from the Grand Isle Tarpon Rodeo sponsor a “Media Day” in which outdoor communicators head out into the big water for a taste of what the Gulf has to offer.
So almost three hours later, I pulled up to the Fourchon dock as the outdoor press piled into the Southerner, a 65-foot fiberglass offshore boat, one of four identical hulls owned by Steve Tomeny. Boxes of sandwiches, cold drinks and snacks were loaded aboard as the press looked on approvingly.
I stored my rod and gear in the big air-conditioned cabin, mingled with old friends, met a few new ones, and waited for the big boat to pull out from the dock. And waited. And waited.
It seems that one of our notable media members was missing in action, and the captain was reluctant to pull away from the dock without him. Finally, at 6:30 a.m., Don Dubuc, outdoor radio and TV personality, avid hunter, angler and late-sleeper, arrived. After a round of applause and a sigh of relief, the big boat got under way.
Two-and-a-half hours later, the Southerner idled up to a big rig in about 200 feet of water.
Up until then, everyone was amicable and friendly, even though there were representatives from numerous competing media. But once the boat stopped and it was time to fish, it was every man for himself. The scramble was on to grab a rod and stake out a position on the port, starboard or aft end of the boat.
Chad Pitre and Matt Williams, the two deckhands, baited up big circle hooks, and passed the word along as Capt. Elliot yelled “25 pulls” from the wheel deck.
The heavy-duty boat rods were strung with 80-pound-test, heavy sinkers and 6 to 8 feet of 120-pound leader. Competing media stood shoulder to shoulder as lines plummeted and hopes soared.
We were expectant. What would take our bait? Red snapper? Mangroves? Triggerfish? Grouper? Amberjack? That’s the thrill of offshore fishing — knowing that almost anything could lurk beneath those depths, and the next tug you feel could be the catch of a lifetime.
Rigs, wrecks and reefs
Tomeny says September begins the fall offshore season, but is considered a “transition” month.
“The red snapper bite is usually pretty good and actually kicks up a few notches, and the amberjack also seem to get a bit more aggressive as the weather begins to cool, so September is one of the better times of the year to fish,” he said.
And what’s on the menu this fall?
“Mangrove snapper,” Tomeny replied, “which might range anywhere from rigs near the beach to 50 miles out, and they seem to shuffle around a lot.
“Over the summer, the blue water moves in close and the water becomes so clear you can see 40 to 50 feet down. That clarity makes the mangroves more skittish and harder to catch as summer wears on.
“We often have to change tactics to catch them. Sometimes, unless they’re in an all-out feeding mode, you just can’t get them to hit a bait on the heavy line we usually fish with. So we switch to lighter tackle, with clear or blue leader, preferably fluorocarbon because it’s tougher, and we hide the hook in the bait. Just cast it out without any weight.
“Sometimes we even have to use live bait — shrimp, croakers — because they won’t touch the dead stuff.”
We noticed just how spooky the mangroves were on our trip. They’d turn away from our dead pogies dangled right in front of their faces. But most of us were using the boat-supplied, heavy-duty equipment. Those who brought their own lighter tackle began casting to the mangroves we could actually see suspended 10 to 20 feet down. The mangroves readily hit the same dead bait they otherwise refused, as long as it was presented with light, clear or blue line.
Amberjack
“It hasn’t been a banner year for AJs,” Tomeny said. “Right now, they’re hanging 30 miles or more out from Fourchon, but if you don’t mind making the run, they’re there.
“These are hard-fighting, tackle-busting fish, ranging in size from 25 to 30 pounds, but 40-pounders on up are not that uncommon. We often catch AJs with hooks and leaders embedded in their mouths, broken off in previous encounters with fishermen.
“But they can get finicky too, especially in this clear water. We recently had a trip when the only thing they’d hit were live hardtails, 6 to 8 inches long. If you fished with larger hardtails, they’d ignore them.
When they get finicky, we switch to lighter tackle, smaller hooks and clear or blue fluorocarbon leader line. We bury the hook in the bait, and then they’ll usually hit it.
“Then at other times, when their dinner bell is ringing, they’ll hit anything — dead bait, live bait, big or small bait and jigs.”
And while amberjack are more of a deep-water fish, they could be suspended somewhere between the bottom and 20 feet from the surface, like most other rig species.
“Once we get into colder weather, around December and throughout the winter, then the AJs will move even farther out into deeper water,” Tomeny added.
We managed to put a few small red snapper in the boat along with a couple mangroves, and Capt. Elliot called for everyone to pull up their lines. We stopped at another platform a short hop away, and the call came: “30 pulls.”
We fished for 10 minutes without a bite, and then lowered our baits even deeper, a little at a time, trying to locate the fish somewhere along the water column.
Then we spotted a large lemonfish just below the surface, circling around between our boat and the rig. We made a few futile attempts to attract its attention with our baits before it disappeared somewhere under the boat. Five minutes later it was back, and this time it fell for a bait tossed enticingly just in front of it. A short battle ensued, and a deftly maneuvered gaff brought the big fish aboard.
Lemonfish, also known as cobia, ling and crab-crunchers, are notoriously curious, and apt to show up almost anywhere in the Gulf. Savvy anglers highly prize them for their willingness to battle and the fact that they make for fine tablefare. Most offshore excursions usually result in at least one or two lemons, or more.
Grouper
Tomeny says in all his years of fishing the Gulf, he’s never made a “grouper trip.”
“We don’t ever say we’re going to go out and catch grouper, because you never really know if you’ll get into them or not. We fish rigs, wrecks and reefs, and gladly take whatever the Gulf offers. Grouper are usually in the mix, but we don’t specifically target them,” he said.
The reason is logical. Though grouper are highly prized by Gulf anglers, the larger fish of the species often hang far out at deepwater rigs and structure, preferring areas with hard rock bottoms.
“To get into a good run of grouper, you’d have to run to the rigs at least 25 to 30 miles out, and to catch them steady we’d have to fish in 400 feet of water, which is just not practical for a big charter boat,” Tomeny said. “That many lines out at that depth — they tend to drift all into each other.
“Add to that the fact that grouper hang up inside the rigs, and if you catch a big one — and 60- to 80-pound Warsaw grouper aren’t terribly uncommon — you’ll have to wrestle it up from the bottom and out from the structure, all without tangling up in all the other lines.
“But we usually catch some smaller gag grouper on almost every trip, mixed right in with the amberjack and red snapper.”
Red Snapper
“The season has been somewhat disappointing,” Tomeny said. “It’s hot and cold. We’ll have a good trip with a quantity of some nice-sized fish one day, and we think we’re finally onto something. Then the next trip all we can find are small fish, and your take-home ratio plummets; you have as many throwbacks as you have keepers.
“Red snapper are hard-pulling fish, great tablefare and much sought after by anglers with any boat big enough to get offshore. I know the commercials also keep a lot of pressure on the fishery.
“But the most disappointing thing is that we just haven’t seen the big sows this year, or the 10-pound fish that were our stock-in-trade. There are plenty of small fish about 18 miles out, but the bigger fish are scarce.
“But once we move into September and the fall season, the water cools down and red snapper seem to get rejuvenated; they move in and get more aggressive, so I’m hoping that the best is just ahead.”
Tuna
“Everybody has a favorite way to fish tuna,” Tomeny said. “But in September, probably my favorite is to troll the big offshore floaters at night. It’s a long run out there, between 75 and 100 miles out, but the action is worth the effort.
“You can chum them up or drag topwater poppers. We often get multiple hookups out there. We might have two, three or even four on at a time, and that is just mayhem. Oftentimes, we get break-offs, and you wind up losing one or two of the fish. It just can’t be helped. But there’s blackfin, yellowfin and bonito aplenty; and everybody goes home with sore arms from reeling and a sore back from fighting some big, tough fish.”
Capt. Elliot says his favorite tuna tactic is to sneak up behind the big shrimp trawlers.
“Whenever I find them 30 miles or more out, pulling nets, I toss out drift-lines, and usually wind up with blackfin or occasional yellowfin, and there are loads of sharks of every size and variety, especially toward the deeper water to the east. I always see a lot of 6- to 7-foot blacktip sharks around the shrimp boats,” he said.
Over the course of the day we probably moved six or seven times, each time fishing over reefs and underwater structure, and around rigs. We caught the normal variety of several snapper species, lemonfish and several grouper, broke off a few sharks, and lost several large somethings that simply peeled off line and disappeared into the depths.
A couple of the media folk got a little green around the gills in the rolling seas and did some extracurricular chumming of their own, right over the side of the big boat.
But all in all, everyone had a great time revisiting old friends, renewing acquaintances, meeting new folks and enjoying Louisiana’s great outdoors, and we even managed to catch a few fish.
And next year, we’ll be back to do it all over again. We love those Tarpon Rodeo caps and T-shirts, and the good Lord knows we can’t pass up anything free.
Capt. Steve Tomeny operates a fleet of four 65-foot offshore boats — the Southerner, the Louisiana, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. He can be reached at (985) 396-2613 or 800-259-8452.