If you fished Venice over the long weekend, you got the rare clean window. Bosworth bumped the recreational snapper limit to five fish Friday through Monday, dropped it back to four on Tuesday. The Atlantic went the opposite way: a federal judge in DC blocked Florida's Memorial Day opener with a preliminary injunction May 21. The Atlantic fleet is sitting in port. The Gulf fleet got a holiday limit.

The Cajun Canyons Billfish Classic captains meeting fires this morning at 10. First lines hit the water at 11. The tournament forecast is the cleanest in years. The river fell back to one foot and is still dropping, the Full Moon hits Sunday morning, and spring tides are building back through the weekend.

Redfish. Three independent inshore voices this week, all telling the same story. Reel Shot (Brandon and Jon Carter) posted two Venice Marina group trips, captions "Another great day with some of our long time customers" Wednesday and "Got a break from the rain and we put the beat down on them" Monday. Capt. Louis Rossignol at Venice Guide Service posted his own Tuesday night, "What we kept, we caught a lot more." Capt. Herman Demoll Jr. at Cajun Culture filed a "Venice Tri-Fecta" on FishingBooker Tuesday, working reds, specks, and a load of sheepshead in the delta. The river fell a foot over the week and is still going, so the clean-water sight-fishing windows that closed up last weekend are wide open again. Spring tides build back through Sunday's Full Moon. Falling-tide drains will produce Saturday through Tuesday. Slot 18 to 27, four per person, bulls catch-and-release.

Speckled trout. Spring tides flip the pattern from last weekend's neap setup. Long-point structure at Pass a Loutre, South Pass, Southeast, and Red will reconcentrate fish as the current builds back. Tight-line three-eighths jigs at the tips. Popping cork with live shrimp in the marsh ponds for cleaner-water classes. Limit 15, slot 13 to 20, max 2 over 20.

Tripletail. Holding pattern. Frenette's mid-May "many big tripletail showed up" still describes the bite. Sight-cast around buoys and floating debris in the passes. No fresh named-captain tripletail intel this week.

Mangrove snapper. Water sat 82.6 degrees at the Southwest Pass buoy Wednesday evening, up another degree from last week. The nearshore mangrove bite at the rocks and rigs is on. Year-round, 5 per day, 12-inch minimum.

Red snapper. This is the headline. LDWF Secretary Tyler Bosworth signed an emergency declaration May 19 bumping the recreational bag from four to five fish per day for Friday through Monday. It reverted to four on Tuesday. The room to do that came from the week-19 landings: 32,802 pounds added in the May 4-10 window, running season-to-date at 40,344 pounds or 4.6 percent of the 882,439-pound state allocation. From 0.9 percent in three opening days to 4.6 percent through day 10. Pace accelerated as predicted.

Capt. Herman Demoll Jr. at Cajun Culture put up a Saturday FishingBooker report titled "Red Snapper Madness! Boxed Our Limits," Day 2 of the bag-bump weekend. As clean an on-water example of what state management buys you as you're going to see. Bosworth in the LDWF release: "Thanks to active state management of our fisheries, we are able to increase the Red Snapper bag limit, and therefore create more opportunity for our anglers to get out on the water."

Yellowfin. Mexican Gulf Fishing Company carried the offshore feed this week. Capt. Chad Reinhardt posted a Thursday morning Venice trip, "Nice tunas, a really solid sword, and another great day offshore." Capt. Kyle on the FV Handyman put up Friday's mixed bag of blackfin and red snapper. The Wild Bill posted another yellowfin Sunday, "gave this tuna a headache and a free ride back to the dock." Three named-captain offshore reports out of one shop in seven days. Tournament fleet is converging on Cypress Cove separately. Three per person per day, 27-inch fork length minimum.

Swordfish. Spring tides building through Sunday's Full Moon mean heavier daytime drift than the neap weekend. Lead weights go back up. Capt. Chad at MGFC put a 240-pounder on the deck the day before our last issue went out, so the daytime sword bite hasn't gone anywhere. Squid or eel for bait, lights to about 1,500 feet.

Billfish. Fifty-five boats max in the Cajun Canyons, three fishing days through Saturday at 7 PM, Sunday is the weather contingency. Live leaderboard at cajuncanyons.catchstat.com once the radios go hot.

Amberjack. Still closed in federal waters through August 31.

The Gulf snapper season added a fish on Memorial Day weekend while the Atlantic snapper season didn't open at all. That contrast is the story this week.

In the Atlantic, NOAA's 2026 recreational season was running on exempted fishing permits issued to Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas. The DC court order halted those EFPs until further notice. Federal recreational red snapper harvest in the South Atlantic is closed indefinitely.

In the Gulf, Louisiana's LA Creel near-real-time landings program gave Bosworth room to do the opposite. That's the bargain state management was supposed to deliver. On a holiday weekend in a year when the federal-managed Atlantic fishery is in court, it delivered.

The angle is already moving. Browns Creek Fish Camp out of Jacksonville posted a pitch in the Venice Marina Facebook group Tuesday afternoon, telling Atlantic anglers to head west to Venice River House. Venice charter operators should expect inbound June and July inquiries from Atlantic regulars.

Mexican Gulf Fishing Company. Cajun Canyons week belongs to the Cypress Cove fleet. Capt. Chad Reinhardt runs the program, Kyle and Trey work the offshore boats, the inshore side runs BlueWave bay boats. Forty-seven thousand Instagram followers and the best-known Venice offshore name for out-of-state anglers. Booking at mgfishing.com. If you want the inshore activity signal instead, Reel Shot Guide Service is on a three-week run of trip-result photos.

Descending devices, with the bag-bump as the new hook. Five fish per day on a long-weekend bump means more snapper coming over the rail than usual, and more shorts and more bottom-stressed fish going back. Federal regulations require a descender on board for any reef-fish trip. LDWF specifically called them out in the Bosworth release.

The SeaQualizer is the spring-loaded auto-release version and runs about forty dollars for the 100-150-200 model that covers most Venice depths. Shelton Fish Descender uses a pinch-release line. Blacktip Catch and Release is the budget option. Bass Pro, Tackle Warehouse, and West Marine all stock at least one.

If you're booked on a charter in June or July, your captain has these. If you're running your own boat into the rigs, get one before you leave the parking lot.

The cleanest Cajun Canyons forecast in years. South 5 to 10 knots and 2 to 3 feet through Thursday and Friday, easing to southwest 5 to 10 and seas near 2 feet on Saturday and Sunday, then west 5 knots and 1 foot or less by Monday.

Full Moon Sunday May 31 at 3:45 AM. This one is a Blue Moon by the monthly definition, second full moon in May, and a Micro Moon because the moon is sitting near apogee, slightly farther from Earth than average and pulling a slightly weaker tide. Tidal range at Pilottown comes in around 1.25 feet through the weekend, spring tides building through Sunday.

Mississippi at Venice was 1.96 feet and rising last Wednesday. Wednesday this week the gauge read 1.00 foot and still falling at minus 0.19 over the past 24 hours. That's a full foot of drop in seven days. Falling-tide drains will run productive Saturday afternoon through Tuesday morning, peaking around the Full Moon Sunday.

Southwest Pass buoy ran 82.6 degrees Wednesday evening. The post-cold-front spring warming is mostly done. Water is settling into its summer plateau around 82 to 84.

Atlantic hurricane season opens June 1, four days out. No named systems anywhere in the Gulf or Caribbean. Quiet start.

Menhaden package status check: three bills on the governor's desk, zero signed. HB 757 transmitted May 19. HB 872 and HB 886 transmitted May 22, both Speaker-signed May 25. As of Wednesday evening none had been signed by Landry. This is normal pacing. Louisiana governors don't usually sign individual bills the day they arrive. But the framing has shifted from "one bill on the desk" to "the desk is loaded." Sources: HB 757, HB 872, HB 886.

Atlantic snapper EFP injunction. NOAA Fisheries bulletin FB26-025 lays out the recreational closure. ClickOrlando wrote it up the same day.

Cajun Canyons schedule. Captains meeting 10 AM Thursday. Fishing 11 AM Thursday through 7 PM Saturday, Sunday weather day. Weigh-ins Thursday 4-8 PM, Friday 8 AM-8 PM, Saturday 8 AM-10 PM at Cypress Cove. Live scoring at cajuncanyons.catchstat.com. Source: comefishla.com.

Federal for-hire red snapper opens Monday June 1. 147 days, runs through October 26. NOAA bulletin.

Reader question from the Hull Truth this week. An angler in the Gulf Coast forum asked Tuesday: "Venice guys, what factors determine what side of the river you want to fish in? Wind? I noticed a lot of boats heading to the east side and I was the only one heading west. Is that strategic?" Short answer is yes, the east-side passes drain dirtier on a rising river and cleaner on a falling one, and this week's falling river makes the west side worth the run. Longer answer is more about wind and tide timing, material for a future Outlook.

Next week, whether Landry signed any of the three menhaden bills, the Cajun Canyons leaderboard once the weekend wraps, and the post-tournament charter activity at Cypress Cove. If you fished it this weekend, hit reply with intel from the water. Attribution on request or off the record. If you know someone planning a Venice trip in June, forward this along.

Until next Thursday.

Joey