I just got back last night after a few fun-filled days in New Orleans. Some friends of mine from NC and I met up on Wed. for some R&R and were able to make it out of Venice on Thursday for some decent Blackfin Tuna action.
We chartered Sea Legs, a 31’ Albemarle with smoking, smelly Yanmars which made for a nauseating day with very few beers consumed since they did not go well with the cockpit full of soot and smoke. It was foggy as hell on the river even though the wind had been blowing 15-20 all day Wed. and into early Thurs. morning. It took 1.5 hours just to get to the Gulf because we went out through South Pass and were running almost exclusively on Radar & GPS due to visibility being less than 100 ft. for much of the trip.
Once in the Gulf, the fog cleared and we made our way out to a few rigs in 300-600’ of water but only managed one AJ on a butterfly jig being worked 120-150’ beneath the boat. While looking for a sunken rig we started marking some nice fish and found some pogies in small schools on the surface that we were able to net and put in the livewell.
We free-lined the pogies on circle hooks and after a few minutes, the action was on. Working just two rods, we were able to stay busy for close to two hours and ended up with 12 bft, 4-5 bonita and the 1 AJ from the oil rig.
Not a stellar day, as we did not land a yft 
, but it was still a good time fishing (with the exception of Carbon Monoxide sickness/poisoning 
). Only one yft was on the dock when we returned after another slow, long trip up the river due to the continued heavy fog that never cleared that day.
The truck ride back to NOLA was also slow and dangerous with near zero visibility at times. Anyone familiar with this area knows that is not a good place to be driving with conditions like that.
We did see one Freeman 33 in Venice and that would be my boat of choice for that area as the cats “walked the dog” on our slow, smelly Albemarle even in the 4-6’ers we were in for the first half of the