Venice, Louisiana is the best yellowfin tuna town in the continental United States, and the fish are here twelve months a year. What changes with the calendar is the size of the fish, where the boats find them, and how they catch them. This page is the planning version: when to come, what the Midnight Lump is, how the Venice boats fish, what the rules are, what a trip costs, and the fish the report has covered.
Winter, December into March, is trophy season. The 150-to-200-plus-pound yellowfin move onto the Midnight Lump and the deepwater rigs, and chunking pogies is the workhorse. Wahoo are a winter fish here, and they're at their best in January and February. The catch is weather: cold fronts roll through all winter and a week-long trip will lose days to them. Three of Louisiana's ten heaviest yellowfin on the state list came off the Lump. The biggest fish in the report's archive, a yellowfin certified at 256.12 pounds, was caught January 16, 2026, on a topwater popper 12 miles out in 300 feet of water. It sits at No. 2 on Louisiana's list behind a 272.25-pounder caught in February 2026.
March is the hinge. The trophy pattern winds down, the fronts spread out, and smaller fish start showing in better counts.
Spring into summer is the numbers game. Most fish run 40 to 100 pounds, 150-class fish are possible, and the boats work the floaters and the shelf-edge rigs on live bait, chunk, poppers, and jigs. The trade is heat and afternoon storms, so the boats leave in the dark.
Fall, September through November, is what Venice operator Tuna Town calls prime time. The fish feed hard ahead of winter, and from mid-October the big ones start showing back up as the water cools. If you asked us for one window, we'd say late October: the fish, the weather odds, and the comfort of a 10-hour day all line up.
Sackett Bank on the chart, the Midnight Lump to everybody who fishes it. It's an uprising of the seabed about 20 miles off Southwest Pass and roughly 40 miles southwest of Venice, with a crest near 200 feet. From December into March it holds the giant yellowfin, plus wahoo, blackfin, amberjack and the odd marlin, and on a good-weather day in February you'll find a fleet anchored up and chumming. It's the best-known of the Louisiana banks for a reason, and a winter trip out of Venice is usually a Lump trip.
Chunking is the base: cut pogies (menhaden) fed down a chum line while you drift over structure or sit anchored, with baited chunks in the slick. Live bait means pogies or hardtails. When the tuna are up and busting bait, the boats cast topwater poppers on heavy spinning gear, which is how that 256 was caught, on 80-pound braid in a fight of about 30 minutes. Kite fishing puts a live bait skipping on the surface, vertical jigging works the deep fish and wears you out, and trolling covers water when nothing's showing.
A day trip is 10 to 12 hours dock to dock, six anglers max on the Venice offshore boats, which leave from the marinas at the end of Highway 23 (Venice Marinas and Launches covers them). Overnight trips are the extended version: the nighttime tuna bite, a swordfish drop, and a second morning on the fish.
Bluefin tuna are real off Venice and rare. The Gulf is their spawning ground, and NOAA prohibits targeting them anywhere in it. The only legal retention is one incidentally caught "trophy" fish over 73 inches per vessel per year, and only while the Gulf trophy subquota is open. In 2026 that subquota closed May 21; in 2025 it closed April 23. Every bluefin landed or discarded dead has to be reported to NMFS within 24 hours. The documented Venice bluefin are spring encounters on yellowfin trips: two 500-plus-pound fish landed by Mexican Gulf Fishing Company captains on May 3, 2018, about 35 miles south of Port Eads, and a 1,152-pounder in 2003. One of the captains in that 2018 story said Kevin Beach, 25-plus years in, had never seen one before. Treat a bluefin as a lightning strike, never the plan.
Yellowfin have a 27-inch curved fork length minimum and a limit of three per person per day or trip. On an overnight, that still means no more than three per person on the boat, regardless of how long you're out. The vessel has to hold a federal Highly Migratory Species permit; the charter boat carries it, and if you run your own boat the HMS Angling permit is $24 a year at hmspermits.noaa.gov. Everyone 18 and up needs a Louisiana license. For a charter trip the Charter Passenger Saltwater License is $20 for three days, bought online at wlf.louisiana.gov before you arrive, and the captain's charter offshore landing permit covers you for possessing tuna. Yellowfin can't be kept if a hammerhead or an oceanic whitetip is aboard. Re-check the current numbers on NOAA's recreational tuna page before you go; they don't change often, but they do change.
Published 2026 base rates on the established Venice offshore boats run about $2,200 to $3,000 per boat for up to six anglers on a 10-to-12-hour day. Fuel billing varies by operator. Many bill it on top at the dock price and quote 175 to 300 gallons a day; the $3,000 boats include it. One operator's FAQ puts the mate's tip at 20 percent of the trip cost, fuel not included. Overnight trips are priced on request; one published rate starts at $7,500 plus fuel. Split six ways, a $2,500 boat is about $420 a seat before fuel and the tip, and that math is why groups fill the offshore docks. The full breakdown, inshore trips and lodges included, is on What a Venice Fishing Charter Costs.
The 256.12-pound yellowfin, caught January 16, 2026, out of Cypress Cove by Fish Venice Charters, now certified as No. 2 on Louisiana's list. It measured 71 inches with a 54-inch girth and ate a 7-inch popper. A 180-pounder on June 1, 2026, from Paradise Outfitters. A 220.8-pound tuna that took the yellowfin division at the Faux Pas Lodge Invitational, July 22-25, 2026. And Brett Davis's 182-pounder on Miss Paula V at the New Orleans Invitational in August 2026, from a fleet that tagged 16 yellowfin, a club record for tagged fish, and weighed 15. Those are four months of one year, and only one of them is winter.
Pick the captain first and the dates second. The Venice operations that run tuna every week publish their rates, post dated trips, and answer specific questions with specific answers; our roster is on Venice Fishing Charters and Guides, and When to Fish Venice covers the rest of the calendar. You can compare bookable Venice tuna trips at Captain Experiences. (We earn a small commission if you book through that link, at no extra cost to you. It keeps the report free.)
For what the tuna are doing this week, the Venice Fishing Report is a free email every Thursday at 6am Central: the dated dock numbers, the seas forecast past 20 miles, and the weekend call. Written by the son of a lifelong Metairie fisherman.