Bamfield Tuna Shootout

Saratoga

Active Member
Thought I would create a thread to represent the great week we spent in Bamfield at our first Tuna Shootout. The host location was Mills Landing - a great facility to base the event from. Jerry has plenty of salt ice which is pretty much a mandatory requirement for this fishery. Thanks for all your help and patience with us newbies Jerry! :) We have been wanting to do this for many years and finally took the plunge this season. What an amazing experience! On our first day offshore (first day ever attempting to tuna fish), we boated 29 tuna! Many double and triple headers. Such a cool fishery and entirely different from anything we’re used to with salmon. The success we had was a direct result of all the help we received from everyone involved. Deryk (Derby) was awesome helping us prepare & answer questions over the past several months. I was able to have all the gear setup and ready to hit the water before we got there ... thanks again for all your help!! I run a 24’ Robalo walk around and didn’t want to install outriggers for my first attempt. Despite that, we managed to easily run 7 lines, 2 of which were diving planar boards off the stern cleats. We managed 3 full days offshore and had only a single line tangle that was easily corrected - so targeting these fish effectively is definitely feasible for newcomers without having to install outriggers (but I am looking at outriggers for next year as they are a definite advantage :)).

All the other participants in the shootout were extremely helpful. The collaborative nature of the event was exactly what we were looking for. Thanks to DAK & Tuna Canoe in particular - they both acted as buddy boats for us to follow out on those dark mornings as we headed 60 miles offshore. Without their willingness to have us follow them to the grounds, we wouldn’t have been going offshore let alone experiencing the success we had once we got there. Once on the tuna grounds, all the boats freely shared coordinates to ensure everyone got into fish ... All In, DAK, Tuna Canoe, Straight Up, Big Coast, Ocean Pacific, Captain Kid, and others shared info freely & often to make sure everyone was into fish. Although the tuna shootout is technically a derby, it’s primary focus is clearly to bring people together to collectively have a great time and experience some of the coolest fishing you can imagine off the west coast of Vancouver Island.

On our final day offshore, we had a 7 header ... all 7 lines! With just two of us on board, it was chaos ... how cool is that! And as we started pulling in the lines to finish our final offshore day, we had a triple header. Just an awesome way to finish off the trip. We ended up with 52 tuna over 3 days.

I understand the intent for next year is to have an online presence with more information available heading into the shootout. I expect the participant boat count will go up significantly as a result. We will definitely be counting down the days until next year. What a great experience!!
 

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A short clip of one of the lines getting hit by an Albacore tuna. We learned early on that you need to keep the speed and count to 10 to maximize your chances of getting double or triple hookups. It didn't happen on this clip but we had countless doubles and triples by giving ourselves a 10 count before grabbing the rod and slowing the boat down.
 
Good stuff Saratoga, wicked fish count to boys, well done.
 
Right on Mark,

Glad you finally got out there and wee able to experience the BTS, you hit the nail on the head as to what this event is all about...it is the camaraderie and the excitement of everyone getting into fish.
I certainly missed not being there this year...glad it was another success!!
 
Thanks Walleyes & good to hear from you Guy. I was really not sure how everything would go but have to say the experience exceeded expectations. Having several great weather days (glassy flat offshore water) in a row certainly helped. The fish were also within range this year. Last year it would have been tough for us to get into many since my safe range is about 70-80 miles offshore based on fuel capacity. I understand the fish were mostly 100+ miles offshore last year. So everything lined up very well for our first effort into this fishery. We learned a ton and will make some tweaks for next year but overall I’m stoked with how well it all came together.
 
Yes it is a whole different world that far offshore...quite unbelievable that it can be that glassy and calm.
We were 110 miles off of Beale back in 2017 and people asked how the weather was and the answer was it was different all the way out at.
Fishing in that glassy warm water is so awesome...hope to be back next year for sure...
 
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Was able to jump on a friends 35ft boat this year with most of the usually team & came back to the Blamtown shoot out this year.. i wasn't able to get out the first day with the crew (sat) as I had the wrap up the last day of fishing for salmon for 2019.. :(
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The boys found them sat. and seem to leave off where we were last year ... I was coming back out in my truck with a tote of ice for round 2 on Monday for a Tuesday fish :)
 
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A beauty run out in the morning...
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Started at the Barkley canyon edge as we saw tuna and a commercial boat work his way south of us..so we dumped the gear in and where fishing...and fishing and fishiiinnggg.... and nothing happening ..oh sure hope they didnt move... :(
 
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Was able to jump on a friends 35ft boat this year with most of the usually team & came back to the Blamtown shoot out this year.. i wasn't able to get out the first day with the crew (sat) as I had the wrap up the last day of fishing for salmon for 2019.. :(
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The boys found them sat. and seem to leave off where we were last year ... I was coming back out in my truck with a tote of ice for round 2 on Monday for a Tuesday fish :)
Awesome! Congrats guys!
 
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It was a great day of laughs food and company... oh ya and 47 of our finned friends.. so much fun :)

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So on Tuesday we bumped ourselves into third... As a crew we decide we had enough share of fish so decide we would not go again & would ride it out.. I believe we got bumped to 5th ..please correct me someone if i was wrong..I wasn't able to stick around to sat. as i had a couple pressing things to deal with... It is always such a great way to end the season :)

I would like to say thanks to Jerry and staff for hosting the event and all the great folks that participate... :) :)
 
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These were the standings when we left on the Thursday. Our team name was Fish On (VHF handle Saratoga). We were in 7th at the time [which we were thrilled about given our goal to just catch our first tuna heading into it :)]. The biggest to that point was just over 22lbs. But Ocean Pacific got into a few nice ones and was leading with almost 76lbs combined weight.
 
What a blood bath, just not too sure I would enjoy that kind of fishing. Many guys ever jig?
 
Who owns that Ocean Pacific now. Years ago when I ran the Charlotte Queen at Hippa the OP used to show up for a week or so every year. The skippers name was Chuck then
 
Who owns that Ocean Pacific now. Years ago when I ran the Charlotte Queen at Hippa the OP used to show up for a week or so every year. The skippers name was Chuck then
 
Who owns that Ocean Pacific now. Years ago when I ran the Charlotte Queen at Hippa the OP used to show up for a week or so every year. The skippers name was Chuck then.
 
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What a blood bath, just not too sure I would enjoy that kind of fishing. Many guys ever jig?
One of the Best Tuna jigs there is - made in Campbell River-trolling & casting both it imitates a juvenile Saury perfectly even fools Seagulls.

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Swimbaits work well to

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