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Outfitter Colby Olford took advantage of a short break between his Colorado archery and rifle seasons to bring his boys fishing down here in Venice, LA. He has put the hurt on several of us who have hunted with him in Colorado and we finally got him to take the bait of offshore fishing. While he certainly never got out of breath down here at sea level, he whined like a baby about our mosquitoes and puked like a champ. After searching unsuccessfully for his buddy “RALPH,” Colby recovered and had a great 2 day trip with his boys Austin and Dustin and guide Josh, but I doubt our laughter at his condition will go unavenged. Here’s Colby, upright, with his boys and a nice late Sept. yellowfin tuna.

Considering these Olford boys have had bears, mountain lions, and moose in their backyard through the years, it shouldn’t be very surprising that they proved to be as tough offshore as they are in their Rocky Mtn backyard. Having previously caught only freshwater trout and pike, they caught on to tuna and snapper fishing pretty quick. We had a great late Sept. offshore trip with them, releasing several other tunas and catching plenty of our tuna on topwater.

Bottom fishing the shallow water in late sept. is never a compromise. With a stiff breeze greeting our crew from Collbran, CO at the dock on day one, it was time to put it on the brown boys. Austin, Dud, Josh and Inga couldn’t help but smile about a pile of big cobias like that.

Summer has come and gone, but some of the year’s best fishing is still ahead of us. After a slow start, Sept. has ended hot. Nearshore tunas, hungry cobia, and red snapper that need to be caught: that’s how we like it. Set up your fall trip now and start thinking about you winter lump dates. This sweet fluking sperm whale shot was caught by Jenn Coulson last month.

Well, so far offshore fishing in Sept. has not been as red hot as I was expecting it to be. In fact, our last three tuna trips were probably the three slowest of the year. Sometimes the truth hurts. However, there have been some nice highlights. Here’s a late summer blue marline caught by Smokey Bauman and crew from Destin, FL.  What do you do when a marlin eats both of your live baits? Well, fight it with both rods, of course. Not surprisingly, 40# of drag catches them much faster than 20#. We didn’t get off scott-free though, as the green blue marlin took it out on the leader man. The gloves with no fingers, while not intentional, were definitely a bad idea. We got another satellite tags in this marlin too, so hopefully in 90 days we’ll get some cool info via Texas A& M.