Warm water off the WCVI?

[gamechanger]

Anyone heard about any tuna being caught off the west coast yet? Any mackeral showing up in any numbers around Barkley or other areas of the west coast? Any other warm water indicators?

Thanks, Millsy

 

[meatwagon]

the south brooks bouy says 54 degrees today. this weather trend tends to keep the warm water pushed off. they were catching them a couple of weeks ago in southern wash. but that has slowed down apparently. charlie made a great tuna post a week or so ago.

 

[IronNoggin]

The majority of the Tuna Boats that have to hunt this side of the border are sitting idle. Seems thus far every time the plume of warmer stuff wanders up into Canadian waters, a strong NorWester blows up and pushes it back south. Those boys (the commercial gents) are my best indication. When they roar out I know to keep an ear open for the call that They're Here! Hoping for a shot at them again this year, so kinda watching intently as it goes. Letcha know what and when I find out...

Cheers,
Nog

 

[phnapa]

subscribe to tarrafin it gives u all the water temps around rthe world, with predictions and flows, its a good tool for tuna fishin u can see where u want to go with gps marks.

 

[Charlie]

Doesn't look warm enough?

This one is free!
http://las.pfeg.noaa.gov/oceanWatch/oceanwatch.php#

 

[gamechanger]

Thanks guys, I'm more interested in the warm water and what that means for salmon survial up here than bonking tuna, but those tuna sure taste good and fight like a *******.

The reason I ask is because we are coming off the 1st part of the shift to cooler ocean conditions in the North Pacific in late 2006 setting up into 2007. These cool conditions are the cusp of changing possibly and the fishing that we are getting now is a signal of that change to cool conditions. That's one of the reasons that there are a lot of 3 year old fish right now and also one of the reasons it's been super-productive off the WCVI pretty much since herring.

The not so good part about this water change is when that warm water starts to stick around here on the WCVI. It brings with it a bunch of fish from the south like mackeral and changes the offshore ocean conditions. Not only do the mackeral feast on juv salmon but the ocean circulation pattern changes and we don't get the upwelling, etc...don't have as much food in the water for everything, and things start to go in the toilet.

The guys at fisheries are getting really interested in this stuff and one of the best places to get that info from is from fisherman like us who are out on the water all of the time. Sure satellites are great, and scientific sampling cruises do tell you some basic information as infrequent as they do them, but I think one of the best places to get that info is from guys like us.

So if you guys start to see things changing out there, let me know and I will pass on to the guys in fisheries management at DFO.

Thanks, Millsy