2013 Tuna adventures
- Thread starter Sculpin
- Start date
harper44
Well-Known Member
I'm a bouy weather guy also. It's looking a little sporty for sure. But I will wait til atleast tomorrow night to make the call. The forecast this week has changed so many times it's rediculous. I will shoot you a txt tomorrow before I get to the wireless black hole of bamfield.
Birdsnest
Well-Known Member
I have a confession: When I heard about the tunas that hit the white PMOs on Tidal Chaos's boat I just about went and painted all my splashers white. I struggled with myself on this one but instead of taking all that time to paint all that stuff yet another colour, again, I settled on painting the rest of my stuff with silver bottoms and blue sides. I just couldn't help myself. I had a florescent orange rabbit on the far back rig last trip and it just didn't get much tho it is the best splasher. I have 4 of those rabbits and their all painted silver now. Then I went and made 7 new splash birds. They will be silver too. I keep changing colours but I think I am really settled on silver. Its the exact colour of a tunas belly so I figure Ill stick to that. All this spray painting has to stop. I even painted the dive boards silver. Just sayin.
Tidal Chaos
Active Member
I have a theory but could be wrong as to why they have been hitting the boats when we got close to the school; I believe most bait fish on our coast and in the pacific have a whitish silver belly; so if the school of tuna were slamming a bait ball our boats could have looked like said bait as they were splashing and rolling as bait fish may when being attacked; and with the boats being all white there was no definition break as there maybe with multicolored boats; so they may have mistaken the messiness the boats were making as escaping bait fish. Only a theory; and hopefully your silver ones will work the same. The ones we made worked surprisingly well for ones we made without knowing how they should be weighted or how much weight to use; they were rolling and uprighting and skewing to the side and making a huge fan wake, looked good anyways and seemed to work for us. we have made some others that are a larger thicker boat with a larger bow and angle we are wanting to try; added more weight and will attempt next trip; we are hoping they will cut harder and further and make a bigger splash!
I will be posting some other pics shortly as well of last sunday that I just got. Itchin to get back out there but no time right now damnit! Good luck to those that go this week end!
jeffywestcoast
Well-Known Member
I was buzzed by this "Speed Air" a couple months back off Nanaimo, quite the hotshot pilot.. pretty cool shots, wonder what the pictures he took of you look like..
Birdsnest
Well-Known Member
They would be nice shots to have. lol They probably had some good photos of us before we saw them coming. Photos where they could see the fine print on my sweater. Seriously!!
I wouldn't say that it is hot shot pilot behaviour so much. I think it is there job to get up close and look at vessels as close as they can. Its cool tho getting buzzed like that. I like it!!!
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CleanlineTofino
New Member
I've got full days with clients next 5 days. If they're keen and we have a weather window I'm in, especially after our latest successful mission! Keep me posted if your out again soon.
Birdsnest
Well-Known Member
Saturday & Sunday pending weather.
Sculpin
Well-Known Member
I'm out. Probably towing the boat into RPM this afternoon
. Good luck out there and I hope to read a report this weekend.
harper44
Well-Known Member
Iced up at Mills on Thursday evening. Decided to give it a look on Friday despite some less than ideal weather. Left Port Desire at 0530, cleared the green can and set the autopilot for 48 36 over 125 15. Seas were glass calm all the way to the outside of big bank. decided to keep on trucking. Began to pick up with the wind about 5 miles before our start point but the ride was still quite comfortable with the wind being SSE and us traveling west. Temp was 55 degrees when the water turned gin blue about a mile before our starting spot. temps rose fast to 58.5 and we deployed a spread of purple and black clones. The wind was howling by now and we couldn't troll west as i had planned so we turned north in an attempt to keep our lines straight. After a quick hit and miss on the starboard side outrigger, we spent the first 45 minutes untangling a barrage of birdsnests before coming to the conclusion that it was too windy to attemp even 5 lines. picked up the first fish right on a temp break at 60 degrees. Put it in the box and spent the next 15 minutes untangling/re-tieing the ensuing birdsnest that resulted from slowing down to boat the fish on 30lb line (10'6" mooching rod with Islander reel). Temps pulled back to 57 so we made an attempt to troll west. we shortened up the spread but still managed to somehow tangle the outrigger lines together after coming over a wave. As we were dealing with that mess, we nailed the second and last Longfin of the day. after boating it and looking at 4 rods to be retied, the despair in the crews eyes was evident so we pulled in the outriggers and headed east at 10:00 am. Took us two hours to get to the big bank as we plowed through some really nasty chop. When we started heading in, we had planned on stopping at the bank, if the weather was better, to put some cold water species in the box but, although better, it just wasnt meant to be. We continued East towards Bamfield and finally started to make some time around the 10 mile mark. Running 4 hours is those kind of conditions take a lot out of you phisically so we were exhausted and headed straight in for fuel and clean-up. Rolled in to Bamfield Harbour at 1400 with two of the most expensive 18lb Tuna you will ever eat!
I must say we did learn a few things on this trip, one thing is that it is nearly impossible to troll a spread like that in high winds, the wind just blows the lines around in the water far more than I was expecting. I figured the hard part of the day would be getting in and out in those conditions but to be honest, with the small swells and the cross wind, although brutally rough and slow trip in, it was not a dangerous sea state. The big issue was trying to fish in those breaking wind waves getting thrown around in the boat. Just because you can make it there and back, definitely doesn't make it worth fishing. Doesn't really matter at that point how big of boat you have I don't think.
I think the fish were definitely there at Loudoun, if we could have presented a nice spread for a decent amount of time I am sure we would have killed em!
Good luck to those that fish today. Conditions look far superior.
Cheers,
P.S. No pics, just to rough out there and forgot when we got back to Bam.
I must say we did learn a few things on this trip, one thing is that it is nearly impossible to troll a spread like that in high winds, the wind just blows the lines around in the water far more than I was expecting. I figured the hard part of the day would be getting in and out in those conditions but to be honest, with the small swells and the cross wind, although brutally rough and slow trip in, it was not a dangerous sea state. The big issue was trying to fish in those breaking wind waves getting thrown around in the boat. Just because you can make it there and back, definitely doesn't make it worth fishing. Doesn't really matter at that point how big of boat you have I don't think.
I think the fish were definitely there at Loudoun, if we could have presented a nice spread for a decent amount of time I am sure we would have killed em!
Good luck to those that fish today. Conditions look far superior.
Cheers,
P.S. No pics, just to rough out there and forgot when we got back to Bam.
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