Umm, warning... I just reread this and its more a story than report – I hope you will all understand...
First of all, I would like to thank all of you! for posting and sharing so much of your experiences! Without the info I picked up here, I doubt I would have had the initiative to set out at all. I can tell you, it was a strange feeling pulling out of the driveway on Weds. morning for a place I've never been to (La Push) and to chase fish I've never caught!
Getting there was pretty straightfoward, Google maps/directions is your friend. BTW - Washington State Ferries makes BCF look second rate and WAY overpriced ( apologies to anyone affliated - just MHO)
6 hours and 373km later, you cross the "Twilight Treaty Line" - No Vampires ALLOWED"! ( Forks and La Push are making 'Twilight' series a tourist destination - silly me thought it had something to do with cheap green fees??? ) La Push is pretty small and mostly a first Nations community but fishermen are very welcomed there and everything you need is within walking distance of the marina ( excellent docks too! - power, fresh water and night lights at every slip ) I knew I would get there late in the day, so I had called ahead – The fellow running the fish plant waited for me and had a tote full of ice and forklift ready. Shovelled 2 coolers and the floor fish box full in 5 mins while the boat was still on the trailer.
Next was launch the boat – another local pulling his herring skiff out, took the time to walk me out to the edge of the jetty and gave me instructions on the do's and don'ts to get out of the river, cross the bar and clear James Is. ( seeing a large sign that said “ bar closed when lights flashing” - US Coast Guard , was NOT making me feel at ease! )
After these two folks, the whole place seemed deserted??? I used the drop box to pay for launch and moorage cause the marina office had a note - “gone home early for dinner” So... I'm really wondering if I have come to the wrong place??? If there's fish to be caught? There should be more people and boats?
So... Thursday morning, I head out trying to be optomistic – I had somewhat counted on being able to get a little local reports. I made a course for the east side of the JDF canyon and hoped for the best. The water was 54.7 at James Is and slowly rose to 58.2 about 32 miles out. As I crossed the canyon westerly, the temp started falling??? By the time I was 38 miles out, it was down to 57.2 !!! WTF???About this time, I can just barely hear Tunadon calling someone on the VHF. ( Nitnat? ) The last image I had seen for SST showed warm water moving south and west so I turned SW and ran another 10 miles when the water turned blue in about a mile and the temp shot up to 59.8. I had decided 50 miles was my limit, so finding this water at 48 was a relief. Set my gear like the Bob Franco article suggested – sunny day so all 6 lines had Mex flag clones. 15 minutes later a reel screams out for 3 secs and stops??? No rods are moving? WHAT??? snagged kelp way out here??? Look again... HOLY %#%#$%^^ - the outrigger is bent back and 2' from the water – WTF is going on????' My poor man' homemade outrigger releases have NOT worked and the line is pinched in the 3/4” split ring!!!!FIRE DRILL!!!! pull in the clothesline and pop the clip – My 4.5” Alvey saltwater fly reel goes to full screech! YAY – FISH ON! Half an hour later the fish is in the bleed box and my hands are shaking too much to key the mic ( Don did hear me – lol )
It has been a 14 year journey to get this far... I first heard of West Coast tuna from a commie in Ukie in 1998. I had just started salt fishing and had NO intention of anything offshore in my homemade 19' river boat. A few years later, in Ukie again, another Commie is selling whole frozen tuna and telling the German tourists that 'this year it was easy... only 50 miles out!” Well, that might have been Mars to me, because there was NO WAY I was getting my wife and 3 month old baby any further out than 'Inside South Bank'. After 7 years of water over the windshield, rough rides and WAY too many hours of overtime... I was the proud owner of my current 23' Monaro – Now the boats in place, I just needed to learn how to fish. Over the last 6 years, I wore out 8 tires, a set of trailer bearings and brakes, spent most of my beer money on tackle instead, broke 2 rods, lost a net, a gaff and 47 pairs of pliers, have more rain gear than dress shirts and loved it all.
Thursday was a pretty good day in my books.
Trolled around the waypoint of the first fish for a few hours w no more bites so I kept going south...The water never got warmer than 60.1 but got very blue and clear. The whole time, I have not seen any birds, bait, or jumpers. I remember reading a post from BloodyDecks about the tuna feeding on smaller baits this year so I switched some gear. I had made a couple daisy chains from hootchies I wanted to try and I put out a bunker colored Xrap ( the dorado one ran hard to the left? ) I also put out a 10lb ball on 5' of tuna cord with a dummy flasher about 10' back from the ball ( does that ever spin at 8mph!!! )
I got a hook up on the Xrap and forced myself to keep trolling for a 10 count. Got that fish in the boat in 5 mins but the fish was 15 lbs and the second hook was in one gill. The third fish was trolling home on the daisy chain set up. Kept trolling until I saw the backing starting to show thru the braid but no other fish hooked up. It was 3 pm and I was still 42 miles out so I decided to end the day and enjoy the sun on my back as “Auto” drove the boat home and I learned that american beer CAN taste good under the right conditions...
Funny story back at the dock – another time – too much already
. I need to get another one just for tuna fishing so I can see the structure. We were totally relying on the guys already out there and just going by co-ords being shared on the radio and looking at the sounder. The sounder actually works because when it was blank we would not have any hits but when the blue blobs (that's what they look like on mine) showed up around 40-50 feet we were back onto them.
