LDWF's red snapper page changed one line since last Thursday. Where it listed the September 4 through 7 window, it now says the season is "currently closed," and nothing on the site or in the department's news says another window is coming. So that's 2026, most likely, and the state still hasn't published what the two windows took. The other number that moved is the water. Southwest Pass ran 87 degrees for a month, slid to 86.2 by Tuesday, and Wednesday morning's readings came in between 85 and 86. Small, but it's the first time all summer the trend has pointed down. Also in here: a kill-switch rule headed for every bay boat in the state, a no-tide new-moon weekend, and a sixth-generation Venice outfit in Book It.

Red snapper. Closed. The second window ran through 11:59 p.m. Monday, LDWF's page now reads "currently closed," and no third window has been announced anywhere we can find. The math is still missing: the landings table on that same page ends August 9 at 847,330 pounds, 96 percent of the quota, so nobody outside the department knows whether the 35,109 pounds that were left went in four days or eight. The weekend itself was good. One crew in the Venice Louisiana Fishing group launched Cypress Cove at 6:30 Sunday, waited out a rain cell at the end of Southwest Pass, found a nearshore rig in 170 feet blank on the plotter, and ran to the rigs 12 to 17 miles off, where they had fish on almost every drop and the worst sharks they'd seen all year: three over 12 pounds at one rig before the sharks found them, 16 to 18 inchers at a last stop at 4:30, a four-man limit plus six beeliners, a lane and an almaco. Another boat filled out on snapper, mangroves, lanes and beeliners, lost tackle to sharks all weekend, and finally found clean fish on cutoff rigs in the West Delta blocks. A third posted a four-man limit Sunday after the early storms cleared.

Mangrove snapper. The near-rig target now, instead of the filler: 12 inches, ten per person inside the ten-snapper aggregate, open year-round. The boats that limited on reds Sunday were boxing mangroves alongside them.

Redfish and trout. Capt. Herman Demoll's Cajun Culture Fishing Adventures posted its first report in two weeks on Friday: caught and released bulls, then went and put meat in the box, which is the September program in one sentence. Capt. Rok Rossignol of Venice Guide Service told Great Days Outdoors at the end of August that the river's early drop "cleared the water and triggered a premature fall pattern," and that anglers "may be running past the fish if they travel too far." His fish are on flats and grass beds with current moving over them, live shrimp under a popping cork, moving often. The groups back him up. A lure maker posted 30 trout under popping corks and live shrimp Monday before running out deep for snapper, another angler posted a mixed box of specks, sheepshead, flounder and reds Saturday, and Reel Shot ran three boat limits Saturday, seventh issue running. Reds are four, 18 to 27 inches, every bull goes back. Trout are 15 at 13 inches, two over 20.

Flounder. Marsh Demon Lures says the fall migration has started, and their advice is the standard one: drain mouths and the deep passes on the outgoing tide. Ten a day, no size limit, and possession closes October 15 through November 30, so you've got five weeks.

Grouper, jacks and kings. The West Delta boat above caught undersized grouper, a cobia and legal kings while snapper fishing, then asked the group where to find gag now that snapper's done, which is the right question. Gag is 24 inches, two per person inside the four-grouper aggregate, and closes September 30 in state water and at 12:01 a.m. October 1 federal, so three weekends. Amberjack is one at 34 inches of fork through October 14. Kings are 24 inches of fork and three per person on the state page. Nobody's posted a dated gag or jack box yet.

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Last week this space owed you an apology for calling the Gulf clear two days before Edouard. This week the pass did what we said it would. Friday afternoon blew northeast to 15 knots, the one miss, and Saturday, Sunday and Monday ran under 10 out of the southwest and west, with one 24-knot gust from a pre-dawn cell Sunday. The crews above fished the flat weekend we sold.

What's not settled is the accounting. Two windows, eight fishing days and a month have gone by since LDWF's last landings entry, and whether that last 4 percent held or blew through on the first Friday is the number that sizes next year's windows. Right now the only people who have it work in Baton Rouge. The day it posts, it's the first line of this report.

The water moved before the air did. Southwest Pass daily means went 87.3 last Thursday, 86.9 Sunday, 86.3 Monday, 86.2 Tuesday, and Wednesday's first readings came in between 85.3 and 86.0. That's the first three-day run under 87 since the first week of August, and it happened without a front. Venice highs are still 88 to 90 and the forecast discussion has no cool front in it; three westerly days, rain, and the tropical wave's clouds did the work. Rossignol's "premature fall pattern" is the same story told from the marsh: the river dropped early, the water cleaned up, and the fish set up close before the calendar said to. Dad's September rule has always been to read the river and the water before the thermometer. Both moved this week. The thermometer didn't.

The Wildlife and Fisheries Commission met September 3 and, per Louisiana Sportsman's write-up, approved a notice of intent that extends mandatory engine cut-off switch wear to every vessel under 26 feet, matching the federal rule, along with updated life jacket and fire extinguisher language. Nearly every inshore hull at Venice Marina and Cypress Cove is under 26 feet, so this puts LDWF agents behind the lanyard on the inside, where most of us clip nothing. Comments go to LDWF Enforcement, Capt. Jason Russo, [email protected], by October 26. Same meeting, one for the pogie file: a notice of intent that drops the 15-fish length sampling from the reduction boats' monthly reports and makes the reports handed to legislative committees public instead of confidential. Comments to [email protected] by 3 p.m. October 26.

Limitless Fishing, Capt. Kevin Drury Jr. It's listed on Captain Experiences as Limitless Waterfowl Outfitters, and the two names are one Venice operation: established in 2013, owned by a sixth-generation Venice native, running a 24-foot Blazer Bay for redfish and specks, conventional tackle or on the fly, which is exactly the close-in popping-cork program Rossignol describes above. What makes it the pick this week is the rest of the package. Their own rate card has inshore days at $700 for one or two anglers, $800 for three and $950 for four, plus fuel and $20 a head for live shrimp; cabins that sleep 12 at $300 plus a $100 cleaning fee; a small houseboat at $250; and teal hunts at $300 a person once the season opens September 19, so a cast-and-blast weekend books through one phone number. Captain Experiences lists the "Inshore Venice" trip from $750 with six reviews, all positive, and one of them thanks a guide named Gavin, so you're booking the outfit, not a promise of who's at the wheel. Nobody publishes a license or tenure number, so we won't either. Direct is (504) 201-8799.

Reds, specks and teal out of Venice: Book Limitless through Captain Experiences

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An inflatable life jacket you'll actually wear, and the lanyard that goes with it. The kill-switch rule above is headed for every bay boat in the state, and the honest part is that the federal version already says most of us should be clipped in, and we aren't. The reason people don't wear the foam vest under the console is 90-degree heat, and a belt-pack or suspender-style auto-inflatable fixes that: Coast Guard approved, $100 to $250, and you forget it's on. Pair it with the coiled lanyard your motor shipped with, or a wireless fob system at $150 to $300 if you move around the boat while it's running. The Venice case is simpler than the rule. The run from Cypress Cove to the West Delta rigs is open water at cruising speed, and nobody swims back to a boat circling with the throttle down. Unmonetized this week; buy it wherever you buy fuel.

The tropical wave that had the pass blowing east at 15 knots Wednesday slides west overnight and the high builds back behind it. NWS Slidell has south 5 to 10 Thursday, seas around 2 feet in the morning then a foot or less; southwest 5 to 10 and a foot or less Friday; south 5 to 10 with 1 to 2 feet Saturday; southeast around 5 Sunday, building to 2 to 3 feet past 20 miles Sunday night. The catch is rain: 60 to 80 percent Thursday through Saturday, showers "likely" Friday and Saturday morning, and slow-moving storms dropping 2 to 3 inches an hour with gusty wind off collapsing cells every afternoon. No advisories after Wednesday night, no front, and the Hurricane Center has nothing for seven days.

The tide goes dead. New moon is 10:27 p.m. Thursday, and Pilottown barely moves behind it: Friday's whole day fits inside three tenths of a foot, two highs and two lows, and Saturday is about the same, against a foot and a half last Saturday. Same reason as two weeks ago, opposite result. It rebuilds from Sunday, 0.7 feet Monday with a noon low, 0.9 Tuesday. Water at the pass is 86 and falling. The river's still dropping, 1.3 to 1.5 feet at Venice and Carrollton headed from 3.0 toward 2 by the 22nd, so the delta stays green.

The read: an offshore weekend and a slow inshore one. Thursday afternoon through Saturday morning is the gag, jack and mangrove run, with a hard look at the radar at lunch. Swords on the dark nights either side of the new moon. Inshore, fish the first hours, find any drain or cut with water moving through it, and expect to work for it. If you can pick, Monday and Tuesday's noon lows beat the weekend.

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Three people asked the same question this week. In the Venice Louisiana Fishing group: one angler wanting a split tuna trip the first week of October, a group of four after a full bluewater day in October, and a work crew planning next year, all asking who to book. We keep the answer at venicefishingreport.com/venice-fishing-charters, and every operator on it was checked against its own website this month, prices and boats included. Split-boat seats are the hard one. Those get sold in the groups a week or two out, and one captain was filling two September 17 and 18 offshore trips at $600 a seat this week.

Highway 23 is one long speed trap, and the locals know it. A Mississippi angler who's fished Buras to Venice for 21 years posted the limits the way a late captain friend taught him: 45 through Belle Chasse, and 45 means 45; 55 past Jesuit Bend; 65 for a stretch; back to 45 through Port Sulphur; and the sheriff's deputies run radar the same as the troopers. A Missouri couple passed him Tuesday and met a deputy a mile later. Those are his numbers, not ours. Read the signs.

The STAR is over, the board isn't up. CCA Louisiana's STAR closed at 5 p.m. Labor Day, and the final standings post after the polygraphs. Venice boats fish the offshore and tagged-redfish divisions every year, so if one of them is on the board, it's in here next week.

If you fished the finale, hit reply and tell me one thing: how far out did you have to run before the sharks left you alone? The answers get printed next week, first names only. And if you know somebody planning the October tuna trip, forward them this one. The charters page is for them.

Joey

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