On a fishing trip in Louisiana and helping veterans

Recently, I dropped by the house of my fishing pal, Mike Schlimgen.  He had just returned from an amazing fishing adventure in Venice, La.  Located on the west bank of the Mississippi River, 77 miles below New Orleans. Venice is the last community down the Mississippi accessible by automobile. Sometimes nicknamed “the end of the world” it is the Southern terminus of the Grand River Road.

Venice was almost completely destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Since then, major reconstruction and reoccupation has taken place. Being located in the Mississippi River delta puts it right in the heart of an unrivaled aquatic food chain.  The nutrient rich waters are home to huge populations of game fish, both inshore and offshore in the deep Gulf waters. No wonder that Venice is billed as ‘The Fishing Capital of the World’.

Mike is the CEO of San Marcos' Team of Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, serving disabled veterans and injured active duty military personal. Local rancher Chris George, is a huge supporter of this service to veterans.  As a reward to some of the volunteers in the organization Chris invited Mike, Erik Larsen and Gordon Holt to fish the Venice waters with him in his new 42 foot offshore boat, powered by four 300 HP outboards.

Although the inshore bay fishing for redfish, speckled trout, flounder and black drum is legendary, Chris took the big boat about 40 miles out into the blue waters of the Gulf. During the two days in the Gulf, they targeted red snapper, grouper, tuna, mahi mahi and swordfish.

The area is well populated with deep water oil drilling platforms which make great structure for all kinds of big fish. This is the area where the B.P. Deep Horizon’s platform exploded and caught fire in recent years. Also the Gulf waters plunge into a deep trench thousands of feet deep that creates habitat for marlin, tuna, swordfish, shark, Wahoo, snapper and grouper.

Our San Marcos team caught fish on the surface trolling lures along weed lines, and caught fish hundreds of feet deep using electric reels and cut baits.  But Mike enjoyed jigging for red snapper in about 200 feet of water with manual fishing rigs. He has a ’fish tale’ related to this third type of fishing.

“We were jigging for the red snapper with silvery metal spoons, at a depth of around 200 feet. I dropped my spoon to the bottom, reeled up about 5 feet, and commenced to vigorously jerk my rod tip, flashing the jig like an injured bait fish.  Suddenly there was a strong “thump” and I set the hook . . . then there was another THUMP and my rod doubled over and slammed against the rail of the boat.  

Thirty minutes later, nearly out of breath, and my hands bruised and blistered, I had my fish close to the boat when my line went slack.  OH NO, I just lost the fish of a lifetime. A few seconds later, a 3 pound red snapper floated to the surface, still attached to my line. The snapper was almost skinned; flesh shredded and ragged tooth marks from what must have been a giant grouper.  Wow! We all just looked in disbelief. It takes a BIG fish to swallow a 20 inch ‘bait’.”

Mike hates to lose a fish more than anyone I have ever fished with. The loss of a 7-inch perch is a disaster to him. I’m glad I wasn’t on the boat when he lost that “fish of a lifetime.”

As you can see from the picture of Erik holding the red snapper, some of the snapper were whoppers.  Mike gave me two snapper throats and it was more than my wife, Beth, and I could eat at one meal.

Erik, Gordon, Chris and many other volunteers as coaches and supporters have made it possible to reach out to hundreds of veterans who live with the pain and limitations of their military service.

Mike says, ‘We have become a family of veterans, reaching out to our brothers and sisters.”

‘If you would like to help veterans with Fly Tying, Rod Building, Fly Fishing Education and Fishing Outings or learn more about the Healing Waters local program contact Mike Schlimgen at mike.schlimgen@projecthealingwaters.org

P.S. A fishing trip to Venice is on my bucket list.