Tuna trip, 11 September 2025. It was time for tuna trip 2 of 3. The forecast was reasonable: waves up to 4 feet and winds less than 10 knots. It was primarily overcast all day, but comfortable. After passing by the bar, Chance (our captain) set a course to the southwest and we zoomed southwest at close to full speed. Two hours and 49 miles later, we were directly west of the Columbia River.
The satellite data showed that we were in a plume of warm surface water.
We saw small groups of tuna hitting the surface as soon as we arrived. We quickly broke out our fly rods and started on the troll. It wasn’t very long before @SteelHeadDave yelled out “fish on”.
Another fish was hooked on the glide and a third as soon as we stopped and began casting. I was the lone angler without a fish, but a kindly albacore solved that problem: 4 anglers fighting 4 tuna. I believe that one fish got off during the fight. But soon the deck was splattered with bright red blood.
We picked up a few more fish casting on this stop as Kyle kept the school close with a steady rain of anchovies. When the school moved off, we went back on the troll. It wasn’t long before we picked up a fish on the troll, another on the slide, and several fish while making short casts around the boat.
This was just the start of an amazing day of tuna fishing with multiple doubles and triples. Here you can see @Bagman fighting an albacore in the foreground while another tuna is threatening to bend @JayB 's rod into a pretzel
With the assistance of Chance and Kyle who were fishing live anchovies or jigs,
we landed 37 albacore.
For the first hour or two, we were encountering small groups of tuna that were blasting baitfish at the surface. In a few occasions, small flocks of terns or Bonaparte’s gulls showed us where the tuna were. Trolling through those spots typically yielded several fish, even if we couldn’t build an extended bait stop. @JayB was a happy camper after this fish.
I started out fishing a baitfish fly
which the albacore liked.
After a few fish, it had lost an eye and I switched to another baitfish pattern with a fish-skull head, a gift from another PNWFF member.
As is typical when fishing for opportunistic albacore, other folks chose other flies. @SteelHeadDave had initial success with a black and purple squid fly.
While I fished just these two flies, other folks cycled through several different offerings.
In mid-morning, the winds picked up, the water’s surface was rougher, and the birds disappeared. The fishing slowed considerably as we would occasionally pick up a fish on the troll but we couldn’t keep the fish by the boat.
Closer to noon, the wind speeds dropped, the surface smoothed out, the birds reappeared, and the fishing picked up again.
We were able to create sustained bait stops. That appeared to attract multiple blue sharks. They would pick off any stunned anchovies that the juvenile gulls didn’t steal. And they liked the fish-skull fly that I was using. You couldn’t tell initially that you had hooked a blue shark as they would make a single fast run, albeit not as extreme as a typical albacore run. But they didn’t fight with the ferocity of an albacore and didn’t dive when near the boat.
We were able to retrieve my fly that blue sharks snarfed on two occasions, once at the side of the boat and a second time after bringing the blue shark into the boat.
[FYI, those small pores on the nose of the blue shark are called ampullae of Lorenzini. These are electroreceptors. These structures evolved from the mechanosensors of the lateral line system. The sensory cells in each pore are sensitive to electrical fields generated by potential prey (for example, due to the electrical activity of a beating heart or other muscle contractions). The sensors can also respond to magnetic fields and may play a role in long-distance migrations.]
As the day progressed, we began to encounter much larger mixed flocks of birds that were shadowing large patches of actively feeding tuna.
These reminded of the “blitzes” that you associate with large schools of bluefin tuna or striped bass
Most of these birds were juvenile gulls.
All day, they had been shadowing the boat to steal the anchovies that Kyle had been throwing out to keep the tuna schools close to the boat. Mixed in with the juvenile gulls were a few Bonaparte’s gulls still in their breeding plumage.
There were also flocks of sooty shearwaters.
Sadly, with a 2+ hour return to Westport, we had to depart while there were still actively-feeding tuna. All-in-all, a fun day with great guys.
Steve
The satellite data showed that we were in a plume of warm surface water.
We saw small groups of tuna hitting the surface as soon as we arrived. We quickly broke out our fly rods and started on the troll. It wasn’t very long before @SteelHeadDave yelled out “fish on”.
Another fish was hooked on the glide and a third as soon as we stopped and began casting. I was the lone angler without a fish, but a kindly albacore solved that problem: 4 anglers fighting 4 tuna. I believe that one fish got off during the fight. But soon the deck was splattered with bright red blood.
We picked up a few more fish casting on this stop as Kyle kept the school close with a steady rain of anchovies. When the school moved off, we went back on the troll. It wasn’t long before we picked up a fish on the troll, another on the slide, and several fish while making short casts around the boat.
This was just the start of an amazing day of tuna fishing with multiple doubles and triples. Here you can see @Bagman fighting an albacore in the foreground while another tuna is threatening to bend @JayB 's rod into a pretzel
With the assistance of Chance and Kyle who were fishing live anchovies or jigs,
we landed 37 albacore.
For the first hour or two, we were encountering small groups of tuna that were blasting baitfish at the surface. In a few occasions, small flocks of terns or Bonaparte’s gulls showed us where the tuna were. Trolling through those spots typically yielded several fish, even if we couldn’t build an extended bait stop. @JayB was a happy camper after this fish.
I started out fishing a baitfish fly
which the albacore liked.
After a few fish, it had lost an eye and I switched to another baitfish pattern with a fish-skull head, a gift from another PNWFF member.
As is typical when fishing for opportunistic albacore, other folks chose other flies. @SteelHeadDave had initial success with a black and purple squid fly.While I fished just these two flies, other folks cycled through several different offerings.
In mid-morning, the winds picked up, the water’s surface was rougher, and the birds disappeared. The fishing slowed considerably as we would occasionally pick up a fish on the troll but we couldn’t keep the fish by the boat.
Closer to noon, the wind speeds dropped, the surface smoothed out, the birds reappeared, and the fishing picked up again.
We were able to create sustained bait stops. That appeared to attract multiple blue sharks. They would pick off any stunned anchovies that the juvenile gulls didn’t steal. And they liked the fish-skull fly that I was using. You couldn’t tell initially that you had hooked a blue shark as they would make a single fast run, albeit not as extreme as a typical albacore run. But they didn’t fight with the ferocity of an albacore and didn’t dive when near the boat.
We were able to retrieve my fly that blue sharks snarfed on two occasions, once at the side of the boat and a second time after bringing the blue shark into the boat.
[FYI, those small pores on the nose of the blue shark are called ampullae of Lorenzini. These are electroreceptors. These structures evolved from the mechanosensors of the lateral line system. The sensory cells in each pore are sensitive to electrical fields generated by potential prey (for example, due to the electrical activity of a beating heart or other muscle contractions). The sensors can also respond to magnetic fields and may play a role in long-distance migrations.]
As the day progressed, we began to encounter much larger mixed flocks of birds that were shadowing large patches of actively feeding tuna.
These reminded of the “blitzes” that you associate with large schools of bluefin tuna or striped bass
Most of these birds were juvenile gulls.
All day, they had been shadowing the boat to steal the anchovies that Kyle had been throwing out to keep the tuna schools close to the boat. Mixed in with the juvenile gulls were a few Bonaparte’s gulls still in their breeding plumage.There were also flocks of sooty shearwaters.
Sadly, with a 2+ hour return to Westport, we had to depart while there were still actively-feeding tuna. All-in-all, a fun day with great guys.
Steve
