The following is a summary of the trip written by one of the crew for his wife. He edited out most of the sappy stuff for this post:
When this goes thru that will mean we are close to shore again after 36 hrs offshore. I don't have cell phone signal out here in the open ocean nor in the Bamfield harbor, but do get it just outside the harbor.* Mills Landing (the fishing lodge) does have wifi with spotty reception so I can also send emails from there even though can't phone.
As I'm writing this I'm sitting up taking my watch from 3-5am while Dave & Doug catch some sleep.* We are drifting about 50 miles offshore near the US nautical border, just SW of Barclay Canyon.* There were 5 boats out here today and 4 have stayed the night.* We rafted up earlier in the evening (tied all the boats side-side) and socialized while we filleted our days catch, then split up to drift for the night spaced out a mile apart.* Really good bunch of guys that keep in touch on the saltwater fishing forum/blog.* Dave got radar on his boat so we have a perimeter alarm set up but one persons stays up anyway to ensure we don't drift into another boat or get in the way of a large ship.* Big ocean, small probability but prudent.* Whoever is up alone also wearing life jacket and he got an extra fuel bladder to have a reserve fuel tank.* The bioluminescence in the water is amazing.
We saw a few humpback whales on the way out from Pt Alberni yesterday, very cool. The salmon has been poor hunting out here all summer so will see if we can find some on the way in tommorow.* Slow start to tuna today but then stellar.
We left the lodge at 5:45 and motored in the dark until the sun came up by 7.* By 8:30 water had warmed up to over 58F and we put lines in, saw some tuna jumping on surface and had a couple on & lost them at the boat.* Didn't land 1st one until 12:30 & was still ones here & there until we picked up & cruised over SW of Barclay Canyon (had a thermal water chart from Google Earth & went hunting for warmer water).* Water warmed up to 62F and we entered the kill zone.* Was a rodeo after that, we'd often have 2 one at a time, sometimes 3 or 4 which is a challenge with only 3 in the boat and one driving.* Not sure how many we landed today, probably 20-25 tuna, will have to count fillets when we get back to the lodge and vacuum seal them, all tucked away in the cooler on salt flaked ice.* Could have easily brought another 10 in also but decided that was enough & kicked back to chill & carve.* Lot of work (and fun) bringing them in and then same amount of time to fillet, all good size.* Jeff on one of the other boats is a guide and said there is a border spat between the US/Canada commercial tuna fisheries so the price of fresh tuna has more than doubled, each of these would be about $80 in the store.
Got into a pod of dolphins today, must have been 40-50 of them all different sizes.* They were amazing, breaching, jumping, flipping, all the tricks you see at Seaworld but au natural out here in the deep blue.* Many times right up beside the boat also, jumping out of our wake or running along the bow.* Smart enough not to take the lures
When we rafted up & started cleaning fish a dog shark and a blue shark came in for some of the remnants, right up behind the boats.* We put a LED squid lure down earlier also but nothing on it.* Apparently can jig for pomfritz out here also but didn't get that ambitious either.
All very unique opportunities to do & see things that most people don't even know about.*
up and jump on here....quick question is where did you guys go?
