Westport tuna pilgramage

[tykkyt e blue]

The BC coastal tuna water looked like it was never going to come closer than 75+ miles out.
A week ago, Tunadon and I tried 80+ out from Bamfield towards the Nitnat canyon..which was just a nice boat ride.
So I packed up the Island camp for the year and hauled the whole circus to Westport Wa.
Been here since late tuesday eve now.
Got to fish thursday for 8 fish..
Long day on the water from dark to dark so we took fri off.
Fished yesterday ( sat) again and got 25! 4 miles from where we only got 8 on thurs..thats fishing!
I will post more pics and details as we take breaks from cleaning and packing for trip back home.
Here is our ripcharts starter location

 

[tykkyt e blue]

Wifi is slow here..apparently pic files too big as well

 

[Seagirt]

Glad you got into them, thanks for the report. Were you able to get a live bait stop going or were they all on the troll?Shake and Bake charter caught site of a marlin NW of Westport yesterday, you must have been close.

 

[tykkyt e blue]

We heard the radio chatter about the striped marlin..so it must not have been too far from us.

 

[tykkyt e blue]

The ride out on day one...30 gal barrel is a homemade bait tank. Fills from far side of pic thru 4 angled ports and then outflows into the bleed box on transom( clear corrugated hose?
Live bait is scooped from pens in the harbour..$5us per lb. Approx 10lb per net dip. We pull up to the bait dock at 515amdark..a 4' high plywood wall with conspicuous signs warning 'electric fence' which didnt lend any confidence where to hold boat next to dock???
A heavily accented Mexican voice comes over the wall.." howw mannee??"
Ive seen it done in san diego so i had some idea he meant 'scoops?'
Before the final e of " 2 please" fades..a 12' long pole w a 18" hoop net full of 5" anchovies comes over the fence and is flipped into our tank.
20sec later a 2nd scoop is laddled on top of the first and what seems like hundreds of anch are ALL trying to jump out of our tank!
WAN- hunred! Sez the voice..and then finally a face appears over the wall.
We hand him the cash and push off quick, there are now 4 boats lined up behind us.

 

[tykkyt e blue]

Bait dock and seine boat in daylight

 

[tykkyt e blue]

Harbour view

 

[tykkyt e blue]

'Downtown' Westport is pretty much just one street. The whole area is a paved sandspit with harbour on the lee side and scrub pine/ tofino style longbeach on the other.
Our rv spot was at Westport Inn.
One short block from dock 12 of 14 docks.

 

[tykkyt e blue]

The harbourmaster closed the docks from any sort of fish cleaning. 2 of the docks are almost submerged from sealions.
Locals pointed us in the direction of 'Merinos' to get our fish cleaned.
A quick calculation had us well over $500usd for our 34 fish.
Umm..no thanks..i have knives and my own vac packer..b b bye now.
So we noticed a storm drain grate in an used part of the campground and set up a mini processing plant ha

 

[tykkyt e blue]

Oops

 

[spring fever]

OopsView attachment 40408 View attachment 40409 View attachment 40410

Great report and pics!!!

 

[jeffywestcoast]

Awesome ! Way to chase down the warm water .. well done.