Last Thursday the first line of this report said the water was finally turning. It turned back. Southwest Pass bottomed at 85.5 degrees Wednesday, then three dead-calm sunny days put it right back at 87.4 Sunday and 87.5 Monday, the number it ran all of August. That's on me: I called a week of cloud and west wind a trend. The wind fixes it starting today. A backdoor front has the pass blowing east 20 to 25 this morning under a Small Craft Advisory, and somewhere past the advisory line, three boats that each put up $35,000 are supposed to have lines in at 8. More on both below, plus a teal opener, a foot of falling tide every day this weekend, and a question for you at the bottom.

Redfish and black drum. The inside is where the fish are and the weather isn't. Blue Line Charter Service posted Tuesday morning: keeper reds first, then they "went and wore out the bulls." Venice Guide Service put up a father and son Friday holding one black drum between them, a popping cork bobbing in green marsh water in the clip. Reel Shot ran an easy trout limit Wednesday with 30 more released on plastic and the bulls let go, then two more full boxes by the weekend, eighth issue in a row for them. Reds are four at 18 to 27 inches, nothing over 27 kept. Black drum are five at 16 to 27, one over.

Speckled trout. Fifteen at 13 inches, two over 20, and the boats above are getting them under corks. The CCA STAR's unofficial board (more in From the Dock) has a 6.85-pound trout that crossed the Venice Marina scale sitting third in the East.

Red snapper. Still closed, still no math. LDWF's page reads "currently closed," and the landings table still ends August 9 at 847,330 pounds, 96 percent of the quota, five weeks and two windows later. The day it posts, it's the first line here.

Mangroves, gag, amberjack, triggerfish. The bottom trip that survives snapper has four species on it, two of them on a clock. Gag is 24 inches, two per person inside the four-grouper aggregate, and closes at 11:59 p.m. September 30 in state water, 12:01 a.m. October 1 federal: two weekends left. Amberjack is one at 34 inches of fork through 12:01 a.m. October 14: four weekends, and read The Week in Venice before you trust your own notes on it. Gray triggerfish is open, one at 15 inches of fork inside the 20-reef-fish aggregate. Mangroves are 12 inches, ten inside the ten-snapper aggregate, and three of the STAR's top ten mangroves crossed the Cypress Cove scale this summer. None of it fishes before Saturday.

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The Cajun Canyons Fall Invitational fishes out of Cypress Cove today through Saturday: lines in at 8 this morning, lines out at 2 p.m. Saturday, scales at Cypress Cove Marina from noon today until 8 Saturday night. Heaviest blue marlin wins, 110 inches or 500 pounds minimum, two per boat, and the entry is $35,000 a boat. As of Tuesday afternoon the live-scoring site listed three boats, American Made, Houdini and Nikki Bella, a $94,500 pool paying $61,425 to first and $33,075 to second, and nobody in the optional $2,500 yellowfin pot. Registration stays open until 11:30 tonight, and what the field is signing up for is the problem. The rules have no boundaries and leave the weather call to each captain, and the canyons this morning are east 20 to 25 with seas 5 to 8 feet, occasionally 10, easing to 4 to 6 Friday and 2 to 3 by Saturday. If a marlin shows up, it's most likely Saturday, and the results are in here next week. Live scoring is at cajuncanyons.catchstat.com.

Now the water. The two-degree drop I sold you last week was real, and so is the two-degree rebound: 85.5 last Wednesday, 86.4 Saturday, 87.4 Sunday, 87.5 Monday, on three days the pass averaged 3 to 5 knots of wind under a September sun. The lesson is one Dad would have given me for free: in September the wind and the sun set the surface temperature at the pass, whatever the calendar says. What knocks it down is what's here now, drier air behind the front and three days of east chop, and the next reading that means anything is next Tuesday's daily mean. For the record, last week's wind forecast held.

Last, amberjack, because some of you have it written down wrong. If your console notes say greater amberjack is closed until October, they're backwards. The federal season opened September 1 and closes at 12:01 a.m. October 14, four weekends from now, and it's the only season there is. The date moves every year by design: NOAA re-projects when the catch target will be hit and sets a fresh closure (2025 closed September 27), so any date on a printed card is stale the day the next bulletin lands. Last year, the day before the federal close, LDWF announced state waters out to nine miles would stay open through October 31. Nothing like that has posted for 2026, and a legal jack inside nine miles is a rare fish anyway, but that's the page to watch in the last week of the month. Limits move too, which is why every number in here gets re-read the morning it goes out.

Pelican Charters and The Venice Lodge. The teal-week pick is a lodge that isn't selling you a hunt. Pelican runs out of 41252 Highway 23 in Buras, a few miles above Venice, with a 24-foot Gravois for the inside and a 41-foot Onslow Bay with a Seakeeper for outside. Their own rate card has the inshore day at $900 for one or two anglers, $1,000 for three and $1,100 for four, plus live bait and tip, for reds, specks, sheepshead, flounder and black drum; the offshore day is $2,300 plus fuel, license and deckhand tip for up to six, with amberjack, grouper and cobia on the list. Deposits don't come back, though weather reschedules do. Lodging is on site and the room details aren't published, so ask. Captain Experiences lists the inshore trip from $1,000 with seven reviews on the listing, all positive. Nobody publishes a license or tenure number, so we won't either. Direct is 504-432-3034.

Reds inside, jacks and grouper outside, a bed a few miles up the road: Book Pelican through Captain Experiences

(We earn a small commission if you book through this link, at no extra cost to you. It keeps this report free.)

One rod for the whole inside, and two baits on it. Two readers with their own boats asked the same thing this month: what tackle, when every dock hands out a different answer. Every rig is tuned to somebody's technique, so pick the technique and the rig follows. For the Venice marsh in the fall it's one outfit: a 7-foot to 7-and-a-half medium spinning rod with a fast tip, a 3000 or 4000 reel, 20-pound braid, and 2 feet of 25- to 30-pound fluorocarbon. Bait one is a 1/4- to 3/8-ounce jighead with a 3- or 4-inch paddletail, or a live shrimp on the same head, under a weighted popping cork for the flats, grass edges and drain mouths. Bait two is the same jighead, a little heavier, tight-lined for the rocks: the river's under 3 feet at Carrollton, so the riprap from the Jump to the pass is green, and Capt. Mike Frenette's rule in Louisiana Sportsman is inside the rocks or just off the tip on the fall, outside them on the rise. That's the whole box. Unmonetized this week.

Today is a Small Craft Advisory day and there's no arguing with it: east 20 to 25 at the pass with seas 4 to 6 feet, occasionally 8, and 5 to 8, occasionally 10, from 20 to 60 miles out. It's a backdoor front, so the wind is east, not north, and the pass side takes the worst of it. NWS Slidell calls Thursday and Friday "our first glimpse of fall," and the glimpse is all in the humidity: highs 89 through Monday, lows 79 to 81, rain near zero through Friday, 10 percent Saturday and 25 Sunday. Friday stays east 15 to 20 with 2 to 4 feet nearshore and 4 to 6 outside. Saturday is the day: east 5 to 10, around 2 feet at the pass and 2 to 3 past 20 miles. Sunday goes northeast 5 to 10 with a chance of storms. The Hurricane Center has nothing in the Gulf.

The tide does the opposite of last weekend. First quarter moon is 3:44 p.m. Friday, and Pilottown runs one long fall every day: Saturday from a 3:53 a.m. high to a 4:29 p.m. low, 1.07 feet, Sunday from 5:02 a.m. to 5:14 p.m., 1.02 feet, against two and three tenths a week ago. The river is low and flat, 2.95 at Carrollton and 2.7 to 3.3 through the end of the month, so the delta stays green.

The read: inside Thursday and Friday, on the west bank and in the lee of anything, fishing the fall from first light to mid-afternoon. Saturday is the offshore day, gag and jacks and mangroves, with the tournament fleet on the same water. Teal opens Saturday too, 6 a day and 18 in possession through the 27th, and Pass a Loutre is on LDWF's own list of the most popular WMAs for it, so the canals will have hunters in them at daylight on the same falling water you want. If you can pick one day, pick Saturday and go early.

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Is Tiger Pass navigable to the Gulf? Ten people answered, and every one of them said no. Somebody asked the Venice group Sunday night, and the replies were a map of how the locals actually run: Tiger Pass to Dixon Bay, then down the west side or back into the river through the spillway and out the end of Southwest Pass; Red Pass, twice; one flat "it's not open"; one captain's warning about trash and a bent tail shaft; and two people telling him to buy a Sea Tow membership before he tries. If you're new to the delta, that thread is the cheapest lesson you'll get this year.

The STAR board is up, unofficial and pending polygraphs, and Venice weighed two of the top three yellowfin. Crystal Long's 109.20-pounder crossed the Cypress Cove scale for second and Griffin Morein's 103.90 crossed Venice Marina for third, behind a 125 weighed at Grand Isle. Neil Record's 6.85-pound trout, weighed at Venice Marina, is third in the East. Weighed at is a different thing from caught out of, but that's a lot of fish through two scales.

Last week I asked how far out you had to run before the sharks left you alone. One answer, on the Facebook post: Tim fished the South Pass drop-off in 200 and 220 feet on the finale Sunday. Sharks killed the first spot, a thunderstorm ran them off the second, and the third stop finished a three-man limit of big snapper. They found him at every depth, and moving worked. Nobody else wrote in, so that's the whole survey.

One question, and the answer decides whether I build it. Two readers this month asked, in different words, for the same thing: a Wednesday-night read built for the weekend, with the tide windows day by day, the wind, where I'd fish from the launch, and what the boats used. Everybody who wanted it would get the same email, on purpose. Tell me straight:

And if you fish the tournament scale Saturday, or the canals at daylight, hit reply and tell me what you saw. First names only, same as always.

Joey

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