it was very nice to meet u Dave and Island Bound. I just loved your quote at the end of the day (ok we'll do one more pass through the KILL ZONE then well take off) priceless. that was a good zone every time we went in we hit something..
We had an awesome day out there on Saturday with much credit to Slivo for finding the fish at Nitnat and to TunaDon for the great communication to help us get on the fish. The camaraderie and communication 60 miles offshore is something special to experience.
We left Mills Landing at 7am with a full load of gear including outriggers, Kill bags, extra fuel bladder(250L), sat phone and a SPOT GPS locater. Travelling with Island Bound we arrived at Barcley Canyon around 9:30AM. Managed to raise TunaDon on the radio and during our discussion, Slivo jumped in to let us know he was catching fish at Nitinat. We ran about 12 miles over to Nitinat and droppped our lines in beautiful blue, 60F water. The first 45 minutes of trolling was slow for us but Island Bound had managed to hook into a few.
Sometime after 11AM, we received a call from TunaDon and it sounded like he was having a bachelor party on the boat. After spitting out some coordinates for us, he ended the transmission with "too busy!, gotta go!".
We caught up with Slivo and TunaDon, dropped our lines and the rodeo was on.
As luck would have it I broke the gaff on the very first tuna we got to the boat and resorted to flipping/dragging them in over the rail or through the back gate.
Over the next 5 hours we had 3 triple headers and ended the day with 22 tuna and 3 newly addicted tuna fishermen. As one of my crew put it, "Salmon fishing is great but this is a whole new high!".
We arrived back in Bamfield around 8pm and took our fish to Mills Landing for photos, cleaning and freezing. Thanks to Jerry and Diane for their great hospitality even when we are not staying with them.
Back in Bamfield Sept 19th-22nd (start of the Tuna Shootout) and hoping the weather cooperates for a couple days offshore!
Will post a few more pics when I get them organized.