2017 Tuna Adventures

Very slow going out there over the weekend. Hard temperature breaks were elusive. Not much life offshore.
The highliners were from Vernon, with 1 each day - well done you pranksters!
Commies are struggling also.
 
Heard the same things from a commercial buddy fishing Canadian waters the last week. Slow. He did however catch a mature Chinook on the spread which was a first.
 
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Very slow going out there over the weekend. Hard temperature breaks were elusive. Not much life offshore.
The highliners were from Vernon, with 1 each day - well done you pranksters!
Commies are struggling also.
Thanks Old School! Even though we scratched for two days straight with only two in the box, the team work amongst the fleet was second to non! With the help and encouragement from Sculpin, and Smiley to get us started, and the continued updates from the rest of the fleet while searching for signs of life out there, it was an absolute pleasure to be a part of this adventure with all you gents! We will be back down the second there is a sign of more fish.

Good luck out there, play safe!
 
Thanks Old School! Even though we scratched for two days straight with only two in the box, the team work amongst the fleet was second to non! With the help and encouragement from Sculpin, and Smiley to get us started, and the continued updates from the rest of the fleet while searching for signs of life out there, it was an absolute pleasure to be a part of this adventure with all you gents! We will be back down the second there is a sign of more fish.

Good luck out there, play safe!

I showed up later in the day with an overnighter in mind. Even tho the fishing was very bad it was greatly appreciate to be given some numbers to fish near other boats. Some of the other small details shared such as NOT WEEDY was nice to know. I trolled around for 4 hours and did not check my spread once and when I put it all away there was not one weed. lol. Just being lazy for I knew it was going to be a tough go so I put my effort into bird watching and searching.

Bailed on the overnighter due to fog and buddy boats canceling their trips.

The comments about selling ice and icebergs were priceless. lol

Dawn Patrol
 
Frustrating fishing for sure. We had 6 tuna do a drive by sideways through our spread with no takers. We were doing our best Marlin Mike impersonation by yelling "Caaaaammmmonnnnn". What a tease. The area at the end of the day had decent bird activity when we showed up with divers and down lookers. Later we saw a couple of pods of dolphins and followed the smaller pod. They would stop every once in a while and feed on something for about 2 minutes. In the splashing you could see tuna jumping and feeding on the same thing. There was some tuna there but they just weren't biting. We had 2 dive boards trip which I think were hits. Other than that zero action on the gear. Wish we had some block anchovy to try a dead bait stop but someone (me) forgot to buy a block when getting ice:oops::rolleyes:. Also ran out of swimbait bodies last year and forgot to restock!!!
I will echo the great team work out there. It was great talking to everyone and trying to find some fish and the humor on the radio was uplifting for sure. We were pretty spread out in the morning so there was a lot of ground covered. Tough go but that's fishing. You can't catch a tuna if you don't try :).

Towed the boat home to either put away or re-group if a solid report comes along. Heard this morning of a commercial boat doing well but trying to find out how far out they are.
 
This isnt a bamfield report but tuna trip nonetheless.
Westport again for us, went out sunday approx 55miles 46, 40 x 125, 22
Got a troll fish about 1030am and then stopped right away..tossed 2 handfuls of live anch from the bait barrel ( homemade 30gal ) while my cousins wife was reeling in her first ever tuna..i baited an anchovy on a 30lb fluoro leader and let it swim. 30 sec later we had a dbl!
Patti is working the troll fish..cousin Doug is on the bait fish...I hook another swimmer into the water and 40' from the boat a boil swirls and we have a triple!!!!
Yee haaaa...
That spot got us 7 fish before tge school moved on.
Next we trolled 3-4 miles further west and did a loop around 4 paddling birds..nada..birds hopped 300yds over and sat back down..this pass got us a dbl troll hookup on green/ yellow zukers..
Stop boat..leave troll fish hang once yhey stopped running...toss chum..2 swimmers into the transom wash while the boat slid downwind...dbl!
Oh oh..3 crew and 4 fish on!
It went like that for 1.5 hours until we called it quits at 18 in the boat.
Fish still boiling when we stopped.
What a day!
 
Couple from my phone..bloody boat pics havent been emailed to me yet.
There is a huge sealion problem in the boat basin. Imagine a marina a little bigger than Ukie but 2 of the fingers are almost sunk bec there are hundreds of sea lions hauled out on them.
So the harbour auth declared no fish cleaning in marina.
We begged permission from campground and set up our table over a storm grate.
Fyi...Merinos fishplant/ store charged $6 per fish to loin and bloodline last year ( happy to pay that after long day)
But this year they want $1.50 a pound to loin and bloodline..vac pac extra!!! Based on whole weight too..30lb tuna equals $45usd...umm...poke that!
Esp annoying when I know ALL the San Diego fish processors charge $ 0.85 per lb INCLUDING VAC PACKING!
The only sour note to the whole WP experience is the ice/ processing charges..same guy owns both biz and they only game in town.
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Sorry to hear the frustration you gentlemen had last weekend. I can't believe you saw Tuna around your boats and they would not bite. I will have to study that behaviour
I know the gold standard in most Tuna fishing areas is to toss live bait out to attract and retain the Tuna at the surface
I do have a live well on my boat but use it to hold dry goods (please don't laugh, oh well go ahead)
I would like to predictably catch live bait and use my live well properly, perhaps next year.
In the meantime I did use herring and anchovies from frozen blocks which I purchased at French Creek
They were expensive, over $120 for the two blocks, but given the amount of fish in each block it could be considered cheap compared to using Rhys Davies bait which is like $10 for 10 herring, also less styrofoam etc.
I would buy the blocks again because I feel it helped put the fish on the line. 4 of the 8 fish we caught took the line within a few minutes of tossing bait. Seriiously.
next year I think I will walk down to the beach at my house and throw my John boat in the water during the herring spawn around the beginning of March and make my own blocks for free.
 
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Work just gave me a week off so just booked Oct 2nd on Ms Magoo with a buddy....stoked is an understatement, hope the weather cooperates.
 
not shaping up well for weather and tuners.....

gonna hafta take a trip!!
 
I'm wanting to do a trip Wednesday/Thursday out of Ukee but don't have any crew. Anyone interested and able to fish mid week ?
 
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