By George Mitchell
Yamaha Pro Staff
I’m currently on the way back to Venice, Louisiana after a few weeks back home in Florida. I put in a lot of time on the lawn mower and weed whacker when I got back, so it’s good to get back into fishing again.
I spent most of the summer in Louisiana helping with the oil cleaning effort, and now that things are getting back to normal and most of the oil is cleaned up, everyone in the marine industry in finally getting to do some fishing. Louisiana is still in the recovery process, but everyone I’ve been talking to says the water in their area looks great and the fishing is as good as ever, if not better.
Before I headed back to Florida, I was fishing on an Avenger 25’ 6” Bay Boat with the new 300 h.p. Yamaha V6 four stroke. Mike Butler who owns Venice Marina let me run the boat, which is one of those bare-boned tanks that just rides like a champ. I caught more redfish in the last month than I’ve caught in my entire life.
Don’t let anyone tell you the fishing in Louisiana has suffered because of the oil spill. When they finally got the flow stopped from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Well, the clean-up efforts started winding down, and in a few weeks everyone was pretty much moving back towards their normal jobs in the fishing industry, which gave me a little time to go fishing.
We put 20 gallons of fuel in the boat, a bunch of shrimp in the livewell and ice and water in the cooler and headed out West Pass. We stopped in a small cove where I put a shrimp on a homemade rattling cork, cast it out and it literally hit the water and never stopped going. It was one of those days where the fish are just so stacked up that the second your bait hits the water there’s a fish waiting to eat it. The noise and that initial splash were just too much for them.
I caught one redfish with 17 spots on it. It was just nonstop action for as long as you wanted to fish. There were also some sheepshead, black drum and ladyfish mixed in, but in three hours we conservatively caught 45 or 50 redfish.
Since that day, I’ve fished a bunch, and everywhere we’ve run to that has held fish in the past is just jammed-up with redfish right now. Because everyone has been concentrating their efforts on containing the oil spill and getting it all cleaned up, no one has had the time to go fishing. That means the fish have had no pressure on them for months, and they’re just stacked up. It’s incredible. Louisiana truly lives up to its nickname of Sportsman’s Paradise.
We had a day we went snapper fishing and left the dock at 1:30 p.m. to make the 38 mile run to a shallow rig, and by 4:25 p.m. we were back with a limit of snapper. That boat has a top end speed around 62 mph and gets phenomenal gas mileage, but we’re talking an 80 mile run round trip, and back at the dock in three hours. The snapper fishing was just like the redfishing—the second your bait hit bottom, you had a bite.
In another week my new 36’ Yellowfin with triple 300 h.p. V6 four stroke outboards will be ready. Once I take delivery, I’ll have a short break-in period where I’ll fish real hard with my son Eddie before the fishing season in Florida kicks into gear.
I’ve been running a loaner 36’ Yellowfin with the same engine set-up and the maximum fuel burn at top end speed is 77 gallons per hour, where I’ve been in boats that burned 69 gallons per hour at the same speed but with only two four stroke engines on it. That 36’ Yellowfin at 3,800 rpms is running 42 mph and getting 1.4 miles per gallon. That’s with a full load of 380 gallons of fuel, four anglers and all our gear. You just don’s see that kind of fuel economy with a boat of that size and speed. It’s just incredible.
As much as I like Louisiana, I love Florida, and I can’t wait to get home with my new boat in tow. It’s going to be like Christmas in September. Hopefully, the sailfish will come early this year.
