2016 Tuna Adventures

[Sculpin]

You guys are wild. We skipped a tuna run this week because it was over 50 miles sw from Westport. How many miles is a run from Barkley? Dang. August will be epic. Be safe and make sure you have enough fuel or buddy boats. Look forward to your reports.

We are known as crazy canucks for a reason LOL! .

I know, I know, tuna on downriggers. Tuna on knucklebusters. Did I mention crazy ha ha.

Two slobs (37# and 28#) caught on turd hootchies, off Scotty downriggers, on slicked out mooching gear, on the Osprey 1 captained by Shawn Hillier. What a way to ruin a guy for life! (picture is from 2011). Mercury plug in there as well (in case nobody noticed).

 

[Oceanmaster]

Looks like a great trip, nice to put some blood on the deck eh. We might try for next Thursday if the offshore water settles down.

 

[Sculpin]

Monday looks like a sliver of a window but building quickly after. I like your later thinking Oceanmaster. I'm ready to go at a moments notice weather depending. I'm not going to beat myself up. Going for the smooth ride and a nice two day window.

 

[Sculpin]

Did anyone make it out on Monday?

 

[Birdsnest]

no one that I know of out of Tuff city. Looked like a lot of azz and kidney tax for tuna fishing (long run) but a most recent data is showing a very nice warm water bay off Tofino that will likely push in more. The weekend is looking ok weather wise. This set up has my attention!

 

[Quinn]

Good day fellow tuna slayers... I was in the tuna shootout last year and plan on going out in August and the shoot out again in september. I learned alot last year however i never got the madness happening like others. I did run a W Patern with 4 hand lines , and 3 rods. I caught one or 2 at a time. So question is, what do you do when you get one on your line. some say just drag it, some say slow right down and wait, some say keep going and chum, some say to loop around, and one said stop pull gear and start jigging. Well the weather last year was challenging so didn't get alot of time out there. this year Im going to go out earlier in the year and get practiced up. i did have the right gear, struggled to understand location but i think i get that now,(structure) and the water was 62 so was in the area for sure. advice is always appreciated.

Circle your bite but make sure you don't drive over the bite. I'm guessing your boat is 25-30 feet so make a circle to the side that caught about five boat lengths wide, you don't want to have your outside gear crossing over one another. Don't change speed. Keep circling if you are catching, we have caught upwards of five tons in a circle for several hours commercially. I know of guys on the radio threatening to fire shotguns at other boats if they got too close to their circle. If after four full circles you don't catch anymore, go back to tacking.
We would throw bait inside of our circle and then when we ran out of bait, popcorn was the next best attractant, then we would throw coffee grounds and vegetable scraps into the circle to chum them up. Whatever works.

 

[cohochinook]

I am going to be in Tofino Aug 9 to 14. I am going to be fishing off my own 22 foot boat, but not equipped for Tuna so will be targeting salmon and bottom fish. If anyone is looking for crew, feel free to private message me. Happy to share in costs for gas, bait...etc. I have tuna fished before off Esperenza.

 

[Eric Nelson]

Circle your bite but make sure you don't drive over the bite. I'm guessing your boat is 25-30 feet so make a circle to the side that caught about five boat lengths wide, you don't want to have your outside gear crossing over one another. Don't change speed. Keep circling if you are catching, we have caught upwards of five tons in a circle for several hours commercially. I know of guys on the radio threatening to fire shotguns at other boats if they got too close to their circle. If after four full circles you don't catch anymore, go back to tacking.
We would throw bait inside of our circle and then when we ran out of bait, popcorn was the next best attractant, then we would throw coffee grounds and vegetable scraps into the circle to chum them up. Whatever works.

Thank you for that. I will be trying that on my first time out later this month. Tuna sounds more promising then salmon this year...advice is always appreciated.

 

[Oceanmaster]

Some pix of our tuna trip on Saturday. Fished Nitnat canyon 62 degree water temp. Cedar plugs were the hot ticket we managed to land 21 lost4 at the boat.

 

[Oceanmaster]

Another one

 

[Joe]

Nice work Oceanmaster! Looks like a few hogs in there as well,

 

[why knot]

Nice job, how far did you end up when you got school,

 

[Aces]

Yes! Nice grade there. Great job gentlemen!

 

[Sculpin]

Nicely done. That hard break out there looked killer. It looked like a bit of a run. I'm curious as well how far you had to go?

 

[Oceanmaster]

We ran 65 miles hoping to find the edge of the break from Friday's terrifen shot,but wound up going about 8 miles further out, we put in at 60 degrees and hit our first fish in less than 2 minutes. Fairly steady action but a lot of singles most were good sized fish largest was just over 26.

 

[eriks]

There seems to be a difference on Terrafin with the SST for Van Isle South and the Cloud Free (CF) SST for Van Isle at Clayquot.
I'm guessing that the CF shots are guesstimates by most accounts. They weren't looking good recently, showing warm water really far out, and no 62F water at Nitnat.
I don't think I'm going to bother looking at the CF anymore. I'm glad that things are looking better today on SST, but perhaps it's just because they have a better quality shot. Now we just need the wind to lay down.

 

[Birdsnest]

Its not looking good.

 

[J-GLOBAL]

wow, looking for a shot, friday was looking good for a bit but now not so sure.

How's temps looking?

 

[Birdsnest]

Still not looking good. Theres a nice hard edge off Tofino, as usual, but it's 60+miles off. This with chronic NW winds out there equals a sad guy here. Will September be "old faithful" this year....we'll see I guess.

 

[adanac]

Saw a confirmed picture of a good sized yellowtail from a commercial guy out of van isle yesterday . Sizeable fish