By the time you read this, red snapper is legal again. LDWF reopened the season at 12:01 this morning and it runs through Sunday night, with a second four-day round from September 4 through Labor Day. Last week we printed the state's own words: "Our hope is that we are able to reopen the season and allow fishing through Labor Day Weekend." A week later, they did exactly that.

Here's the catch: 35,109 pounds of allocation left, 4 percent of the year's total. This is a go-now reopen, not a take-your-time one. And the Gulf picked this exact week to go dead flat.

Red snapper. Open 12:01 a.m. today through 11:59 p.m. Sunday, then again Friday September 4 through Monday September 7. Four fish per person, 16 inch minimum, and note the fine print: the reopen covers private recreational boats and state charters, while federally permitted charter boats stay on their own federal season. With 4 percent of the quota left, LDWF can shut it again on short notice, so treat this weekend as the sure thing and the Labor Day window as the plan that could tighten. Mangroves go back to being the filler in the box instead of the whole trip: 12 inch minimum, ten per person inside the ten-snapper aggregate.

Redfish and black drum. The same captain we quoted last week kept the receipts coming: Cajun Culture's Capt. Herman Demoll posted a Sunday trip on FishingBooker with "a good Redfish bite but we had to fight through a few sharks at every stop." Same tax the offshore guys were complaining about last week. And Southern Access Charters' Capt. Chad Rudolph, posting Tuesday, had redfish limits waiting after a tripletail morning, calling the current program "redfish, triple tail, sheepshead combos." Slot's unchanged: four fish, 18 to 27 inches, nothing over 27.

Tripletail. That Southern Access trip is the box score of the week: 5 of 8 tripletail stuck Tuesday, five kept, "more than enough," and they still made the redfish limit and got in early. Rudolph has guided these waters for 21 years by his own site's count, and he credited another captain's tips for the day, which tells you the fleet's talking. 18 inch minimum, five per person.

Speckled trout. Reel Shot again, and yes, that's five issues running, so we'll keep it short: piled them up Saturday, "full tables at Venice Marina" Monday, double limits Tuesday. The better story is Capt. Jon Carter's Tuesday experiment: he tied on a plain piece of rag, the way the old-timers swore by, and put the myth to the test on camera. Judging by a comment section now asking where to buy yellow rags, the old guys were right. Fifteen fish at 13 inches, no more than two over 20.

Amberjack. Opens Tuesday, September 1, and this is the last issue before it does: one fish per person, 34 inch fork minimum, federal waters open through 12:01 a.m. October 14. The rest of the September 1 stack is in The Week in Venice below, and one date in it will surprise you.

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First, the tournament, because we owe you a board. The club hasn't posted the New Orleans Invitational results yet; last year's went up about two weeks after the scales closed, so this is normal, and when they post, we run it, in full. What we do have is live color from inside the fleet: Plaquemines Councilman Mitch Jurisich fished the Invitational and narrated it to the local groups in real time, five release posts across two days, from "Released one so far" Thursday midday to "And another one!!" Friday evening. Whatever the board ends up saying, somebody's cockpit was busy.

Now the calendar, because September 1 is the biggest date of the fall and the fine print matters twice. Amberjack opens that day, closing October 14 when federal waters shut. Gag grouper opens the same day, and here's the date worth writing down: the federal gag season closes October 1. One month. LDWF's state table says December 31, but that covers state waters inside nine miles, and almost no gag fishing happens there. If this state-federal split sounds familiar, it's the same lesson the amberjack dates taught us last issue, and it's a pattern now: check the federal date before you book the trip. Gray triggerfish rounds out the stack, open in both state and federal waters since August 1, one fish at a 15 inch fork.

The fleet already reads the reopen the way we do. Southern Addiction, last week's Book It, posted open boats for the snapper days the same evening the reopen news broke, and Blue Line was advertising Friday and Sunday trips before dawn on Wednesday. When the boats reshuffle their calendars that fast around two four-day windows, believe the urgency.

Blue Line Charter Service, Capt. Rich McCloskey. The reopen is the story this week, so here's a Venice captain actively selling it: Blue Line posted open snapper dates for this Friday and Sunday, right inside the window, with last-minute pricing. McCloskey has fished out of Venice for more than twenty years, runs a 26 foot Blackjack, has fished the Elite Redfish Series pro circuit, and spearfishes with the Hell Divers when he's not on the rod, so the man's in the water year-round. His snapper and tripletail trip on Captain Experiences runs 1 to 5 people from $1,000, with a 5.0 rating across its four reviews. One more thing his own page says plainly: special pricing for police, fire, EMS and military. Booking direct is 225-276-5263 if the tracked door below doesn't fit.

Check Friday and Sunday first: Book Blue Line 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.)

A fighting belt. September 1 puts amberjack back on the menu, and a legal AJ starts at 34 inches of fork length and fights straight down, all of it. The snapper studs this weekend pull the same way. Most weekend boats down here own exactly zero fighting belts, which is why the first week of AJ season ends with somebody's thigh wearing a rod-butt bruise for a month. A basic gimbal belt runs $30 to $60, the standup version with the back straps maybe double that, and either one turns your drag setting into something you can actually use. Buy it this week, not at the dock on opening morning.

This is the flattest stretch of the summer. NWS out of Slidell has west wind around 5 knots today with seas a foot or less, and it barely changes: 5 to 10 knots Friday and Saturday, still a foot or less nearshore, around 2 feet out past 20 miles, southeast and building only by Sunday night. No advisories anywhere in the forecast. The one variable is the daily storm pulse, mornings Friday and Saturday, afternoons today, so the standing rule about winds near thunderstorms is the whole risk this week.

Here's the wrinkle: the full moon is tonight, and the tide's shrinking anyway. Pilottown swings about three quarters of a foot today, half a foot Friday, and by Sunday the water barely moves at all. Down here the moon's angle, not its phase, drives the daily range, and the two are out of sync this weekend. Ranges rebuild Monday, and September 1 gets real water movement back, a nice welcome for the amberjack opener.

The river's stopped falling. The Venice gage has nudged up off its floor over the past week, and Carrollton is forecast to rise a couple feet by September 1 on upstream rain. Still low, still green, but the two-month slide is over. Water temps hold 87 to 88 at Southwest Pass for a third straight week, and the tropics are quiet where it counts: nothing in the Gulf, and the one system way out in the far eastern Atlantic may grab a name today before hostile air shuts it down by the weekend.

Read it this way: offshore, every day is runnable, and today and Friday pair the flat water with a falling afternoon tide and an open snapper season. Burn the fuel early in the window. Inshore, fish the moving water today and Friday; by Sunday you're hunting current seams, not tide.

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The Hwy 11 swing bridge is stuck open. Councilman Mitch Jurisich posted Sunday that the bridge is closed to vehicles, open to boat traffic only, with a welder due out Monday to fix the arm. No all-clear had posted as of Tuesday. Highway 23, the road you take to Venice, is unaffected; if your route uses the back road, check before you commit.

A canoe from Montana is finishing at South Pass. A paddler from the Yukon put in at Three Forks, Montana, and posted to the local groups this week that he expected to reach South Pass Tuesday afternoon, the whole Missouri and Mississippi behind him. His problem is the one every kayaker who's fished the passes knows: the last miles of this river only run one way, and he needs a boat ride back up to Venice. Somebody down there will sort him out. Somebody always does.

The telegraph is full of trip planners. Three separate asks hit the groups this week: a three-generation family plotting a spring catfish-and-tuna trip, a couple wanting an inshore charter for a December honeymoon, and two DIY tuna guys hunting cheap fall lodging with boat parking. Fall and winter calendars are filling now, which is exactly why the booking links above exist. If you're planning your own trip and want a straight answer instead of a group-thread argument, hit reply.

If you fish either snapper window, hit reply and tell me how the box looked, and how thick the sharks were on the way to it. And the Invitational board runs in this space the week the club posts it. That's a promise we're keeping on layaway.

Joey

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