It was time for my second tuna trip of the year with Nick. It would be a familiar crew: @alpinetrout, @Bagman, @ThatGuyRyRy, and myself, all folks that I had fished with before. Our deck hand today was Eamon. With everything loaded, safety briefing completed, we were off shortly after 5:30AM. We stopped for a few brails of anchovies and Nick headed off into the fog offshore. We skirted Ocean Shores which meant that we were heading directly west. There was a bit of wind out of the north and the swell was from the north. It was a wet, bouncy trip out for me in the outside starboard seat but my scopolamine patch kept my stomach calm.
On the way, we saw the usual flocks of shearwaters (mostly sooty), an occasional albatross, and storm petrel or two. A pair of Pacific white-sided dolphins played brieflyin the wake of the boat. Later, as we passed a Nereocystis head, I saw what appeared to be a blue shark at the surface.
After over two hours of cruising (and close to 70 miles west of Westport according to the GPS metadata on my camera), we finally reached the fishing area. I had tied on a black over white shock and awe
onto my Airflo depth-finder line (easier to cast than the RIO Leviathan) and I just had a day (a delightful improvement over my first disappointing trip a week earlier). I picked up several albacore on the troll, several fish on the slide, and several fish while casting. [You can see from the splattered blood covering me in the picture below why All Rivers insists that you wear coverings that can be hosed off...]
At one point, both @alpinetrout (hooked up on the troll) and I (hooked up on the slide) were fighting very nice albacores at the stern. Each of us had recovered enough of our fly lines that we could see the flashes of the fish below.
But then my fish decided to switch sides of the boat; that meant navigating around the twin 250 engines. Even with 12 wt rods, these fish are too powerful to guide; they go, we follow. Our fly lines were very close and our fish appeared to be swimming near each other. He and I did the up-and-over to try to unravel the developing origami, but we were pretty sure that we were still wrapped up. We each managed to pull in enough fly line for Nick to see that the fish (and maybe our earlier actions) had left our lines quadruple wrapped – potential disaster. Letting the pressure off our fish, Nick guided us with the several rounds of 'up and over" of the two rods and lines to unravel the mess. Once the lines were free, the two albacore went their separate ways and both fish were eventually gaffed.
This year, I encountered “short-strikes” by albacore for the first time. On the troll, you would feel a grab or even have a fish strike and strip off line, but then the line would go slack. As you can see, the teeth in the mouth of an albacore are more effective at holding prey than cutting prey.
At one point on the troll, @ThatGuyRyRy felt a grab and then I had a fish strike (and stick) a fraction of a second later. Perhaps this fish had hit his fly first and then mine.
After a long quiet period of trolling (“the doldrums”), @ThatGuyRyRy and both had simultaneous hits, we called out “fish-on”, and we had both fish get off - just release the fly. Then, within seconds as the boat slowed down “on the slide” and as we were stripping our flies in, we both had vicious strikes that stuck, very nice albacore too when landed. The sauries that were available were only 1.5” long, and I wonder if the fish were short-striking because our flies were double the size or more of the naturals.
In the calmer winds of the afternoon, we began to see substantial bird activity, Sabine’s and/or Bonaparte’s gulls and some Artic terns. In some cases, there were several birds just sitting on the water. But in other cases, the birds were hovering over the surface as if following feeding albacore. I had heard about tracking bird activity to find albacore, but the conditions on previous trips had not really lent themselves to this. And we started to see albacore boiling at the surface too. So, Nick and the rest of us kept our eyes peeled for surface and bird activity. Nick steered the boat toward the closest activity. Generally, if we trolled by a spot that had some action, we would get one strike. But even with a good brail of anchovies, the fish were always on the move and we had a hard time converting these into long-duration bait stops in which we could hook fish on the strip.
Eventually, our time was up and we had to head back to Westport. Another great day on the water.
On the way, we saw the usual flocks of shearwaters (mostly sooty), an occasional albatross, and storm petrel or two. A pair of Pacific white-sided dolphins played brieflyin the wake of the boat. Later, as we passed a Nereocystis head, I saw what appeared to be a blue shark at the surface.
After over two hours of cruising (and close to 70 miles west of Westport according to the GPS metadata on my camera), we finally reached the fishing area. I had tied on a black over white shock and awe
onto my Airflo depth-finder line (easier to cast than the RIO Leviathan) and I just had a day (a delightful improvement over my first disappointing trip a week earlier). I picked up several albacore on the troll, several fish on the slide, and several fish while casting. [You can see from the splattered blood covering me in the picture below why All Rivers insists that you wear coverings that can be hosed off...]
At one point, both @alpinetrout (hooked up on the troll) and I (hooked up on the slide) were fighting very nice albacores at the stern. Each of us had recovered enough of our fly lines that we could see the flashes of the fish below.
But then my fish decided to switch sides of the boat; that meant navigating around the twin 250 engines. Even with 12 wt rods, these fish are too powerful to guide; they go, we follow. Our fly lines were very close and our fish appeared to be swimming near each other. He and I did the up-and-over to try to unravel the developing origami, but we were pretty sure that we were still wrapped up. We each managed to pull in enough fly line for Nick to see that the fish (and maybe our earlier actions) had left our lines quadruple wrapped – potential disaster. Letting the pressure off our fish, Nick guided us with the several rounds of 'up and over" of the two rods and lines to unravel the mess. Once the lines were free, the two albacore went their separate ways and both fish were eventually gaffed.
This year, I encountered “short-strikes” by albacore for the first time. On the troll, you would feel a grab or even have a fish strike and strip off line, but then the line would go slack. As you can see, the teeth in the mouth of an albacore are more effective at holding prey than cutting prey.
At one point on the troll, @ThatGuyRyRy felt a grab and then I had a fish strike (and stick) a fraction of a second later. Perhaps this fish had hit his fly first and then mine.
After a long quiet period of trolling (“the doldrums”), @ThatGuyRyRy and both had simultaneous hits, we called out “fish-on”, and we had both fish get off - just release the fly. Then, within seconds as the boat slowed down “on the slide” and as we were stripping our flies in, we both had vicious strikes that stuck, very nice albacore too when landed. The sauries that were available were only 1.5” long, and I wonder if the fish were short-striking because our flies were double the size or more of the naturals.
In the calmer winds of the afternoon, we began to see substantial bird activity, Sabine’s and/or Bonaparte’s gulls and some Artic terns. In some cases, there were several birds just sitting on the water. But in other cases, the birds were hovering over the surface as if following feeding albacore. I had heard about tracking bird activity to find albacore, but the conditions on previous trips had not really lent themselves to this. And we started to see albacore boiling at the surface too. So, Nick and the rest of us kept our eyes peeled for surface and bird activity. Nick steered the boat toward the closest activity. Generally, if we trolled by a spot that had some action, we would get one strike. But even with a good brail of anchovies, the fish were always on the move and we had a hard time converting these into long-duration bait stops in which we could hook fish on the strip.
Eventually, our time was up and we had to head back to Westport. Another great day on the water.
Last edited:
