Buras LA

[curtisce]

Venice is known as the redfish and tuna hotspot of LA,well we were alittle up the road in Buras and only ventured to launch one day out of Venice. Myself and 2 friends headed down for 4 days of fishing last week.Have a friend who goes quite often in August and he claimed the heat wasn't that bad. Hoped for more stable weather than we had last Oct when I last visited the area. Last trip was a spur of the moment thing. That combined if it being high seson landed us in a triler which we shared with another party ,cooking for ourselves and as far as a guide we took  what we could get. This year we stayed at Paradise Plus Lodge, were fed and the guides and boats an upgrade from our prior trip. 

   Not going to put alot of specifcs down just give you the basic idea of our trip.Fished 4 days. For reds you can go after bull reds 25# plus or fish for keepers. The bulls are typically in open water feeding on bait, the smaller fish resides in the shallows along the marsh grass. If you go if a guide they are going to hand you a spinning rod with a popping cork. The bulls you typically use a swimbait jig andon the smaller one shrimp on a jig. We did that the first day but after a day of lobbing corks we ditched the cork and used either a swimbait or a large beetlespin rig with a swimbait jig attached. did get the flyrod out on the last day but with 2 spin anglers in the boat I was compromised by the distance I could cast. also not having some vibration to the lure decreased it's effectiveness. 

Bull reds it seem like the size the very consistent. You may catch a few larger but the vast majority are cookie cutter. But they are big cookies.

Went into what they call a pond which is a "pond" off of a passage , the guide said tghe gator in ther has become his pet and sure enough a 4 ft gator swam up to the boat and followed us around. Hope he gets smarter before gator season

Not everyone down here is a redfish fisherman, lots of work boats out. Shrimpers,no didn't see Forest or Bubba, crabber and Pogey fisherman. also see helicopters flying the oil rig workers out to sea.

smaller keeper size red

Shrimp boil one night more than we could eat.

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[BilletHead]

        Great Report Curt! Pictures too. You may of seen Mark fly out. He sent me a text saying he was on his rig,

 BilletHead

[Johnsfolly]

I like big cookies😁! Would love to tangle with some of those redfish. Congrats on a great trip!

[Ham]

Oh Curt wants to make this personal , well Buddy, I’m headed down there in November if things go right. 

I’ll show you the bass fishing side of Venice with maybe some salty stuff. 

[curtisce]

1 hour ago, Ham said:

Oh Curt wants to make this personal , well Buddy, I’m headed down there in November if things go right. 

I’ll show you the bass fishing side of Venice with maybe some salty stuff. 

October/ November are suppose to be the best. You going down for you Basscat exchange trip. Our guide ,Rick, a RCA liked fishing for bass cuz they are better to eat than reds. Limit is 10. Hear all about catching LM there have yet to see one. I'm sure you will catch your fill of those and reds.Forgot to say anything about all the kitty cats we caught.  For those wondering RCA is a registered coonass , ask BH what that is.

[Ham]

My Uncle Johnny started a Oilfield Maintainence Company in Buras in the 70’s. He and his wife Billie Ray had a Company provided part time help and serviced Oil Field equipment, eventually my cousin Ricky joined the business too. My uncle was a welder back in the day, but eventually was just the voice of experience. 

We would stay with them for a few days at a time and fished down there before it was a big thing. 

I certainly didn’t do as much of it as I would like to have done.

yep looking forward to the second half of the BassCat exchange trip. Gonna be Great. 

[curtisce]

It's going to be a yearly thing for me. Keep having the idea of taking my own boat down there and doing it on the cheap. Then I think of meeting an oyster bed and lack of groceries down there and I gravitate to the lodges.

[Gavin]

Looks like an awesome time! Killer Redfish! The Florida Gulf is pooched south of Tampa to Marco.....best to go to LA at the moment.

 

[Ham]

12 hours ago, curtisce said:

It's going to be a yearly thing for me. Keep having the idea of taking my own boat down there and doing it on the cheap. Then I think of meeting an oyster bed and lack of groceries down there and I gravitate to the lodges.

It’s very doable as an independent guy. You really don’t gage to put your boat in sketchy places to get bit.Lots of fish. LOTS of fish, might to better to stay up the road and trailer a little bit. 

If you can afford the lodge / guide route, Go for it.