Update, October 1: the river was already ahead of the forecast printed below when this went out. Carrollton read 4.35 feet at 7 this morning, where the forecast had 3.6, and the forecast NWS issued at 10 has it back past 4 from early Friday on, cresting about 6.2 on the 7th and 8th, and not back to 4 until the 28th, at the far end of the forecast. So the river numbers below are out of date, from "right on the schedule I printed last week" through the read's "then falling to 4.0 by the 13th."

Gag closed last night, and the weekend behind it is a washout. NWS has rain from Friday through Sunday, with 1 to 3 inches and up to 5 in spots Saturday and Sunday, the heaviest along a weak cold front that stalls over the coast with a tropical wave running into it; the Hurricane Center doesn't expect it to become anything. Under the rain, the river is coming up right on the schedule I printed last week, forecast past 4 feet at Carrollton Saturday night, and the tide swings a foot and a half from today through Saturday, about six times what it did last Saturday. Also in here: a reader's two days on the Red Pass rocks, CCA's new reef in Garden Island Bay, and an 8-hour marsh trip in Book It with fine print worth reading.

Redfish and trout. One written Venice redfish report this week, from a reader who fished the Red Pass rocks two days running last week, and it has the detail. Wednesday, with a hired guide, they caught reds, many of them outside the slot. Thursday, with a kayak guide over the rock piles at Red Pass, a few reds and one trout on a dead shrimp on a stopper. He threw an artificial shrimp for a while and got nothing on it, while the angler next to him with live shrimp got most of the bites. So the fish were on the rocks and the real shrimp beat the plastic one. A fly guide posted a rig for bulls Sunday, no spot named: soft-plastic shad on a quarter-ounce jighead, about two and a half feet of 40-pound fluoro to a popping cork; chunk it, pop it, pause a couple seconds, repeat. Reds are four a day, 18 to 27 inches, and the ones over 27 go back. Trout are 13 to 20 inches, fifteen a day, no more than two over 20, and that one fish is the only dated Venice trout I have this week.

Yellowfin, swordfish and wahoo. There's no fishable day outside through Saturday, so here's the mid-October read from Capt. Josh Edwards of Calcutta Gold Fishing, in the Great Days Outdoors report dated September 24. The biggest yellowfin come in toward the river around the middle of the month, and the long summer runs shrink to a run of 5 to 15 miles out of South Pass, on mullet he cast-nets around the pass (on a low tide the bait sits in the deeper channels and is easier to net). Fish crashing bait on top get a live one or a topwater. The dusky sharks are on the same bait, so he's moved to heavier tackle to shorten the fights. The swordfish grounds he works are about 17 miles off South Pass, and for wahoo, with the grass lines breaking up, he trolls diving baits right up against the rigs. Mid-month is his date for the tuna only. I didn't find a dated Venice tuna catch this week.

Gag, amberjack, red snapper. Gag closed at 11:59 last night in state water and 12:01 this morning federal. Amberjack is still open, one fish a day at a 34-inch fork minimum, federal water through 12:01 a.m. on the 14th, and as of this morning LDWF still hasn't said what the nine miles do (its regs page says the 14th, its pamphlet says the 31st). Red snapper is closed, so the bottom trip that survives all of this is jacks, triggerfish and mangroves, and there's no weekend to run it in.

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Three things land on the same weekend, and none of them helps the others. The rain is the big one. The Slidell office puts the heaviest of it Saturday and Sunday, along a front that stalls over the coast, and calls at least localized flash flooding a threat; the Weather Prediction Center has a slight risk of excessive rain on the central Gulf Coast for Saturday. The river comes up under it (the numbers are in The Outlook), and the tide runs a foot and a half at Pilottown today through Saturday, the most it has swung since early September. A southeast wind and that much rain hold water in the marsh on top of a tide that's already big, while the river muddies the passes from the top down.

Last week I told you the jetties were a this-weekend proposition, because the forecast had the river climbing from 3.7 on October 3 to 4.9 by the 7th, past 4 feet, the number Louisiana Sportsman gives for when the green water goes muddy. That weekend held: Carrollton sat at 2.88 and 2.83 on the 26th and 27th. This week's forecast holds that schedule, the 4-foot line falls Saturday night, and after that the green water at the rocks is gone until the river drops back, which the forecast has around the 13th.

CCA Louisiana put its 70th reef down September 15 in Garden Island Bay, 400 of the Natrx "Cajun Coral" modules, with the crews staging out of Cypress Cove. LDWF posted the release itself last Thursday. The coordinates aren't out; CCA says they'll go up on ccalouisiana.com, and when they do, that's new hard bottom in redfish and trout water.

Correction, October 2: Brent Roy, who owns Venice Charters Unlimited, wrote in to say he runs live bait on every charter, cleans fish and allows beer, so the lines below saying otherwise are wrong (the no-restroom line stands, it's a bay boat), and that Jesse Bishop hasn't been with the company in three years. Those lines, Bishop included, came off the Captain Experiences listing, which still shows them, and I printed them as his policy without checking with him. His own site lists the inshore trip at $1,150 for one to three, $1,400 for four and $1,550 for five with a $300 deposit; the CE prices below are $100 lower for up to four and take a 15 percent deposit, so confirm with him. I've also pulled the Captain Experiences link that ran with this section: Roy wrote back that he didn't set up that listing and didn't know it existed, so book with him direct at venicecharters.com.

Venice Charters Unlimited, Venice. Brent Roy says on his own site that he's been running charters out of Venice since 1991, and the outfit's listing on Captain Experiences is an 8-hour inshore marsh trip on a 25-foot Skeeter bay boat with rods, reels and tackle included: $1,050 for one to three anglers, $1,300 for four, $1,550 for five. The fine print matters on this one. No live bait on this trip, so you're throwing artificials or the bait the captain brings; no fish cleaning, no beer and no restroom. The deposit is 15 percent and doesn't come back unless the trip is canceled for weather. CE names Jesse Bishop as the guide on the trip, and nobody promises which captain runs a given day, so ask. Before you click, know that the CE page shows Bishop's name over Roy's first-person bio and files the whole thing under a town in Arkansas. That's CE's filing error, and the boat leaves from Venice.

A real rain suit, jacket and bibs. I've never run one here, and this is the weekend for it. Rain from Friday on, 1 to 3 inches and up to 5 in spots Saturday and Sunday, and on any run across open water under a southeast 10 to 15 with seas of 2 to 4, occasionally 5, inside the 20-mile line, the spray comes over the bow the whole way, so you're wet from above and from the side for hours. What you want is a hooded jacket that zips to the chin and bibs that go down over your boots, in a shell that's rated waterproof with taped seams. The PVC set from the hardware store keeps the rain out and cooks you at 86 degrees, so look for a breathable one. Wear the bibs over the boots, never tucked in, so the water runs off instead of down your legs, and hang the whole thing to dry when you get in.

Today is southeast 10 to 15 inside 20 miles with seas 2 to 4 feet, occasionally 5, and gusting to 20 out to 60 on 3 to 4, occasionally 5; a slight chance of storms this morning turns into a better one this afternoon, and one or two storms could turn strong. Tonight the inside water holds 2 to 4, occasionally 5, and stays there through Saturday on a southeast 10 to 15 that eases to around 10 Friday night, while the outside bumps to 4 to 5, occasionally 6, on a southeast 15 to 20 tonight, drops to around 4 Friday, comes back to 4 to 5, occasionally 6, Friday night, and eases to 3 to 4, occasionally 5, Saturday. Rain chances run 47 percent today, 52 tomorrow and 79 tomorrow night, 92 Saturday, and the heaviest of it falls Saturday and Sunday along the stalled front; Slidell has the front pushing most of the rain offshore Monday, but Venice still sits at 82 percent with the wind northeast 10 to 15. Highs 84 to 87. The Hurricane Center isn't expecting anything to form in the Gulf in the next seven days.

The tide is among the biggest of the month today through Saturday, 1.41, 1.50 and 1.49 feet at Pilottown, one high before dawn and one low in the afternoon, then 1.37 Sunday and 1.16 Monday; last Saturday's whole swing was 0.24, and the last time it ran this big was the first week of September. Last quarter is Saturday morning, and the moon is at its farthest north tomorrow and Saturday, which is what sets the range; the flat water comes back the 8th and 9th, ahead of the new moon on the 10th. Water temperature at Southwest Pass has held in the same two-degree band, 85 to 87, since September 9; the east-northeast blow on the 25th knocked it to 85.1 for a day, and it was back to 86.7 by Tuesday. The river is what's changing. The Carrollton forecast has 3.6 today and tomorrow, 3.8 Saturday morning and past 4.0 that night, 4.2 Sunday, 4.5 Monday, a crest of 4.8 on the 6th and 7th, and back to 4.0 by the 13th.

The read: outside is off through the weekend, the inside is a rain gamble on a big falling tide with the river coming up under it, and what's forecast past it is the tide flattening out the 8th and 9th and the river cresting the 6th and 7th, then falling to 4.0 by the 13th.

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Two clocks run out on the same weekend, and this one doesn't count. You can't keep a flounder from October 15 through November 30, and amberjack leaves federal water at 12:01 a.m. on the 14th. With this weekend a washout, October 10 and 11 is the last weekend for both. Flounder are ten a day, no size limit, until then.

The Redfish Classic Championship runs out of Venice Marina tomorrow and Saturday, captains' meeting tonight at 6, artificial only, and the rules let the director shorten or cancel a day for weather, which is worth remembering when the results land here next week. And a correction from last week: I printed that three boats fished the Cajun Canyons Fall Invitational and the public board never recorded a fish. The tournament never ran. The scoring site still lists three teams and zero catches, and I read that as a tournament that fished; the committee's own Facebook page, which I hadn't checked, says they "couldn't make the magic happen" and will try the fall tournament again September 16-18, 2027.

Tuesday at 4, CPRA is at the Big Game club on Cypress Cove Road for the Birdfoot Delta restoration meeting I wrote up last week. It runs until 6, they want to hear from people who fish the passes, and this is the last issue before it.

Rigged Up runs without a brand this week on purpose. If your rain suit has survived a few seasons of spray and Plaquemines rain, reply with which one and what it's held up to. First names only, same as always.

Joey

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