2025 Tuna and Exotics

Tallguy said:
And to round out the traditionally included elements of a tuna trip report:

1) lots of birds were seen. Might be the most birds I have seen on a tuna trip, we were fishing with birds working the water pretty much all day. Mostly I have no idea of their names, other than some terns for sure, and several albatross sighting through the day.
2) possibly we were seeing lots of birds because we were close to shore, closer than I have ever fished before. Land and mountains were quite visible while tuna trolling, I am pretty sure that's a first for me.
3) fishing was slow till late morning, slow enough that Nick reeled us up and ran us toward land with the mains for 10-15 minutes. First time we have had a main engine run instead of a troll toward it on my tuna days. Strong captaining, we soon were in the midst of our best bait stops of the day. Pretty good visibility in the water, still love seeing tuna zip by crushing the chum fish, even if they choose to repeatedly inspect and refuse my fly in close to me.
4) got to watch a nice tuna inhale my fly 10' off the boat on our first fish stop. After the slide, I was reeling in to go to the bow, so the fly was just sitting motionless near the top, till a solid tuna swam out from under the boat and took it into the deep. Very nice.
5) Nick did catch fly rod tuna (and one jig fish I think) on his birthday. I am sure he would have more appreciated a day off, but if he had to be out there...
6) embarrassingly, I only caught one fish on the jig rod, generating much well deserved negative commentary regarding my fishing skills. Expect to see that rig up in the classifieds if it doesn't redeem itself next trip. It seems to be too difficult for me to learn to operate.
7) lots of whale spume sighted throughout the day, usually not very close, and the swell was quite up, so sightings were difficult. One whale was seen repeatedly breaching in the distance. I saw one humpback fluke, and on the way in, a good sized female orca quite close to the boat. Shortly after that we ran through a what must have been a dozen or more whale blows scattered across a couple of miles, so it's possible we ran through a dispersed pod of resident orca feeding on CR salmon returns 4-5 miles offshore. Given the swell, no actual fin or body sightings other than the first, so who knows.
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Regarding jigging difficulty: For any novices or people struggling with jigging, I give them one of my rods rigged with a "coltsniper" style jig. You cast them out and retrieve erratically. What makes it so great is that the "worse" someone is at it, the more fish they seem to catch. A skilled jigger who likes to retrieve with a rythmic retrieve like a traditional deep/vertical jig won't catch as many fish.

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Tallguy said:
And to round out the traditionally included elements of a tuna trip report:

1) lots of birds were seen. Might be the most birds I have seen on a tuna trip, we were fishing with birds working the water pretty much all day. Mostly I have no idea of their names, other than some terns for sure, and several albatross sighting through the day.
2) possibly we were seeing lots of birds because we were close to shore, closer than I have ever fished before. Land and mountains were quite visible while tuna trolling, I am pretty sure that's a first for me.
3) fishing was slow till late morning, slow enough that Nick reeled us up and ran us toward land with the mains for 10-15 minutes. First time we have had a main engine run instead of a troll toward it on my tuna days. Strong captaining, we soon were in the midst of our best bait stops of the day. Pretty good visibility in the water, still love seeing tuna zip by crushing the chum fish, even if they choose to repeatedly inspect and refuse my fly in close to me.
4) got to watch a nice tuna inhale my fly 10' off the boat on our first fish stop. After the slide, I was reeling in to go to the bow, so the fly was just sitting motionless near the top, till a solid tuna swam out from under the boat and took it into the deep. Very nice.
5) Nick did catch fly rod tuna (and one jig fish I think) on his birthday. I am sure he would have more appreciated a day off, but if he had to be out there...
6) embarrassingly, I only caught one fish on the jig rod, generating much well deserved negative commentary regarding my fishing skills. Expect to see that rig up in the classifieds if it doesn't redeem itself next trip. It seems to be too difficult for me to learn to operate.
7) lots of whale spume sighted throughout the day, usually not very close, and the swell was quite up, so sightings were difficult. One whale was seen repeatedly breaching in the distance. I saw one humpback fluke, and on the way in, a good sized female orca quite close to the boat. Shortly after that we ran through a what must have been a dozen or more whale blows scattered across a couple of miles, so it's possible we ran through a dispersed pod of resident orca feeding on CR salmon returns 4-5 miles offshore. Given the swell, no actual fin or body sightings other than the first, so who knows.
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C'mon!!! No photos of the KW? "good sized female orca" is an interesting description. Can you elaborate on what characteristics made it "good sized"?
Also, humpback blows are very different than KW blows in size and shape. HW blows are tall and columnar vs. low and cotton-bally. Just seeing the top of a HW blow coming up from behind a swell might look like the entire KW blow on a flat ocean.
 
ffb said:
Beginners luck for sure. I did my tuna fly tying like I do my Puget Sound tying. "This looks neat lets put it on a hook and see if a fish will eat it".

Only fished the one fly all day. I had a few other flies I'd tied but this was catching fish so if it ain't broke don't fix it I guess. Purple and pink half and half type fly, about 4" long.

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Don’t cut yourself short, your a naturally fishy guy and you also mastered a technique I’ve seen no other tuna fly fisherman pull off. Based on your success yesterday though, I’m sure it will be a mainstay on these trips for years to come. I’ll let you share with the group if you wish to divulge your secret.

What I will say though, is expect a run on these from PNW tuna fly guys. I bet Suzanne Somers had no idea we’d be her target demographic when she decided to market these.

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jasmillo said:
Don’t cut yourself short, your a naturally fishy guy and you also mastered a technique I’ve seen no other tuna fly fisherman pull off. Based on your success yesterday though, I’m sure it will be a mainstay on these trips for years to come. I’ll let you share with the group if you wish to divulge your secret.

What I will say though, is expect a run on these from PNW tuna fly guys. I bet Suzanne Somers had no idea we’d be her target demographic when she decided to market these.

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I can't just divulge that secret on a public forum.
 
adamcu280 said:
C'mon!!! No photos of the KW? "good sized female orca" is an interesting description. Can you elaborate on what characteristics made it "good sized"?
Also, humpback blows are very different than KW blows in size and shape. HW blows are tall and columnar vs. low and cotton-bally. Just seeing the top of a HW blow coming up from behind a swell might look like the entire KW blow on a flat ocean.
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I tend to leave my phone away, and try and live in the moment more, so I don't much have photos of anything.. sorry.

The definite orca sighting was within 200 yards of the boat, and it had the backwards curve of a female orca. Good sized I would put the dorsal fin at around a meter in height, not a juvenile orca, full sized adult for sure. I have seen enough of them that I feel pretty good about that ID.

The humpback/s in the distance were definitely the tall columns of spray. Plus the fluke looked pretty humpback like when it dove, though it was far away. We had whale sightings 3-4 times over the day, so these weren't together.

I thought maybe orca for the sightings on the return because it was my impression they were all traveling south, in the same direction, even though spread over a couple miles, in groups of 1 or 2 together, so seeing the definite orca for the first sighting makes me think that might have been a pod and we saw the first one. Plus they all were shorter blows in height, maybe more cottony, so I was thinking smaller species of whale. Not sure what else medium sized moves in a dispersed pod. I am sure you know.

It's a hypothesis, I am not confident in the guess, didn't really see any actual whale parts in the surface chop, and they weren't close.
 
Tallguy said:
I tend to leave my phone away, and try and live in the moment more, so I don't much have photos of anything.. sorry.

The definite orca sighting was within 200 yards of the boat, and it had the backwards curve of a female orca. Good sized I would put the dorsal fin at around a meter in height, not a juvenile orca, full sized adult for sure. I have seen enough of them that I feel pretty good about that ID.

The humpback/s in the distance were definitely the tall columns of spray. Plus the fluke looked pretty humpback like when it dove, though it was far away. We had whale sightings 3-4 times over the day, so these weren't together.

I thought maybe orca for the sightings on the return because it was my impression they were all traveling south, in the same direction, even though spread over a couple miles, in groups of 1 or 2 together, so seeing the definite orca for the first sighting makes me think that might have been a pod and we saw the first one. Plus they all were shorter blows in height, maybe more cottony, so I was thinking smaller species of whale. Not sure what else medium sized moves in a dispersed pod. I am sure you know.

It's a hypothesis, I am not confident in the guess, didn't really see any actual whale parts in the surface chop, and they weren't close.
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Just busting chops a bit on the photos. I don't think I've ever brought my camera out of the bag on a tuna trip so I get it.

Sometimes HW are pretty thick inshore so you may have been seeing dispersed singles or loose aggregations, or it could have been a spread out group of KW. In any event it sounds like a great day out there... and you even caught some fish! ;)
 
@Tallguy bring this on your next trip, those eagle eyes are not useful if you call out the fish clock directions all wrong 🤣

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Tallguy said:
Nick needs to paint some of those on the gunnels of his boat, to keep it a tad more clear to me where 12 and 6 really are.
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We are always looking out the back so I can see where a person could get confused in the heat of the moment.
 
That was a fun day for sure! I did manage three birthday fish, but only two came on the fly. Still, not gonna complain. The number of birds is not atypical, though typically we see that a bit later in the year, and not every year in great numbers. There's been a ton of birds this year but the last few days were the first they've been super helpful for finding fish.

Naturally the fish were much more cooperative today, from the get go. But the conditions were much lousier, especially for fly fishing.

The fish ate the jig quite well today. At least the two I caught, and then bounced onto the bow at the end of the day did lol. Didn't really think that whole plan through too well, but it worked out.

Highlight of my day today was watching a 5-6' Mako bite the tail off and an albacore then come back and smash a second fish right at the boat, bit it clean in half. God those sharks are wicked.

There have been an insane amount of HWs hanging around the GH the last few weeks. Easily 40-60 or more. It's created some interesting, butt cheek clenching moments driving out and in.

Also we saw an enormous school of Northern Right Whale Dolphins when we made our jump back inshore, that was pretty rad. Those are such interesting looking creatures.
 
Nick Clayton said:
That was a fun day for sure! I did manage three birthday fish, but only two came on the fly. Still, not gonna complain. The number of birds is not atypical, though typically we see that a bit later in the year, and not every year in great numbers. There's been a ton of birds this year but the last few days were the first they've been super helpful for finding fish.

Naturally the fish were much more cooperative today, from the get go. But the conditions were much lousier, especially for fly fishing.

The fish ate the jig quite well today. At least the two I caught, and then bounced onto the bow at the end of the day did lol. Didn't really think that whole plan through too well, but it worked out.

Highlight of my day today was watching a 5-6' Mako bite the tail off and an albacore then come back and smash a second fish right at the boat, bit it clean in half. God those sharks are wicked.

There have been an insane amount of HWs hanging around the GH the last few weeks. Easily 40-60 or more. It's created some interesting, butt cheek clenching moments driving out and in.

Also we saw an enormous school of Northern Right Whale Dolphins when we made our jump back inshore, that was pretty rad. Those are such interesting looking creatures.
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Love it!! Faces of NRWD always remind me of Jabba's little sidekick Salacious Crumb. Yes I'm a nerd.

photo from the internet



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Nick Clayton said:
That was a fun day for sure! I did manage three birthday fish, but only two came on the fly. Still, not gonna complain. The number of birds is not atypical, though typically we see that a bit later in the year, and not every year in great numbers. There's been a ton of birds this year but the last few days were the first they've been super helpful for finding fish.

Naturally the fish were much more cooperative today, from the get go. But the conditions were much lousier, especially for fly fishing.

The fish ate the jig quite well today. At least the two I caught, and then bounced onto the bow at the end of the day did lol. Didn't really think that whole plan through too well, but it worked out.

Highlight of my day today was watching a 5-6' Mako bite the tail off and an albacore then come back and smash a second fish right at the boat, bit it clean in half. God those sharks are wicked.

There have been an insane amount of HWs hanging around the GH the last few weeks. Easily 40-60 or more. It's created some interesting, butt cheek clenching moments driving out and in.

Also we saw an enormous school of Northern Right Whale Dolphins when we made our jump back inshore, that was pretty rad. Those are such interesting looking creatures.
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Super jelly of the mako sighting and interaction!
 
Nick Clayton said:
There have been an insane amount of HWs hanging around the GH the last few weeks. Easily 40-60 or more. It's created some interesting, butt cheek clenching moments driving out and in.
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Sorry I’m late to this one… what’s HW and GH?
 
Tallguy said:
Just depends on if you have a birds eye, or fish eye, view of life. When fishing, I struggle to not think like a fish!
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We’ll cut you some slack. Collectively, we haven’t used clocks that aren’t digital since 1997. Regardless of whether you incorrectly yelled “3 o’clock” or “9 o’clock”, I just instinctively looked left because that’s where the hour always is….
 
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