Tuna 2024

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That was so much fun yesterday. I can’t believe that fish chased the fly to the surface. If I’d been thinking I should have done a figure 8. But thought goes out the window when fish are boiling around the boat. I can’t believe how the ocean went from lumpy to glassy. And when the sun came out, couldn’t get all those extra layers off quickly enough. Gotta get me a crab shirt line @dbaken . Great fishing with you guys!

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Today was just an all around great day out there. We got out nice and early. The ocean was rather friendly for the run out.

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Lines were in by about 8:15. The skipper and I are experienced, and we had two newbs on board for this gear focused but fly friendly trip.
We had to troll at least 45 minutes before we hooked our first fish. That fish came off in the process of tossing bait and clearing lines, but we were on a school, and they were FIRED. UP. Anchovies were getting smashed within 5 seconds of hooking and swimming them. After I landed a few and things were still going gangbusters, I said “I suppose I should cast a fly, huh?” And the skipper agreed that yes, I should. I made my way to the bow, fly rod in hand, stripped off the sinking head and about 20 more feet of line and flipped the head and fly out there. As I was managing line to make a “real” cast, watching the fly sink, it got inhaled. Literally inhaled. This is @ThatGuyRyRy ‘s fly from a swap, deep in a tuna gullet. IMG_2521.jpegIMG_2523.jpeg

We ended up boating 13 in that stop. It was nuts and the newbs first ever tuna action. Can you imagine that as your intro to the fishery? Perfect! They killed it. They’ve caught lots of fish, including big kings, just not tuna, and it was a blast hearing the shocked reaction to the strength of a tuna. That included an early cluster involving two fish tangled in the motor (both hand lined in and landed btw). We had so many over and under and arounds, what a blast. My fly fish and another fish got twisted not once but twice, and we managed to untwist and land them, with some key help from the skipper.
Eventually, the fish just seemed to move off.

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13 tuna will fill up a bleed bucket.

We went back on troll, and it was maybe another hour before two rods went off—an X-rap and a clone. We landed the X-rap fish and five more on bait. By 12:15, we had 19 tuna on board. And I wasn’t going to keep any…but we wanted just one more good stop. The weather was so nice, and the ocean had big swells, but they were organized and spaced far apart, and it was just pleasant out there, so we visited, joked, and kept trolling, including a fly, with nothing happening and we called it at 3:30. We were able to fly home comfortably going with the swell. We spotted a pod of Dall’s porpoises, slowed, and they made a beeline for us—time to play in our bow wake! We got a full Sea World experience watching them streaking around under and in front of the bow, porpoises basically saying “Hold my beer,” doing some crazy maneuver and splashing us. It was a real highlight, not just of the trip, of life! What a cool thing to experience.
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I made a bunch of great memories this weekend, met some famous PNWFFers I had not yet met, and fished with old pals and connections. I have more cool stuff to share, especially natural history type stuff, but I am wiped out so this is it for now. .
 
We had a decent day, 12 fish total.

The run out was pretty good, few bumps here and there but mostly calm and got to see a beautiful sunrise.

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@Tallguy and @jasmillo definitely had the hot hand yesterday having boated the majority of the fish. Best part of the day was the 5 hook ups we had at once, @Nick Clayton was on the bow if I remember correctly. Amazing how we never got tangled during that shit show :) Tallguy and I came real close at mid starboard though.
Most of the action was early in the day and it came to a random fish here and there later on.

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Fun day! It was good to meet you guys in person.
 
How did you do on the private boat @Matt B?

As Lou mentioned, most of our fish were random hookups outside of the one time we had 5 on at once. We also lost a couple of nice fish. One to a broken fly line and the other that just popped right at the boat after a long run deep into the backing. Most fish were on the troll. @Tallguy may have gotten one casting, Nick got his casting and I got one on the slide. That may have been the only slide fish?

Looking forward to the late September trip I’ve got planned.
 
jasmillo said:
How did you do on the private boat @Matt B?
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Matt B

Post in thread 'Tuna 2024'

Today was just an all around great day out there. We got out nice and early. The ocean was rather friendly for the run out.

IMG_2517.jpeg

Lines were in by about 8:15. The skipper and I are experienced, and we had two newbs on board for this gear focused but fly friendly trip.
We had to troll at least 45 minutes before we hooked our first fish. That fish came off in the process of tossing bait and clearing lines, but we were on a school, and they were FIRED. UP. Anchovies were getting smashed within 5 seconds of hooking and swimming them. After I landed a few and things were still going...
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Just want to confirm that if you can swing a lay day between trips offshore, that’s the luxurious way to go. But if you can’t, go both days anyway.
 
jasmillo said:
How did you do on the private boat @Matt B?

As Lou mentioned, most of our fish were random hookups outside of the one time we had 5 on at once. We also lost a couple of nice fish. One to a broken fly line and the other that just popped right at the boat after a long run deep into the backing. Most fish were on the troll. @Tallguy may have gotten one casting, Nick got his casting and I got one on the slide. That may have been the only slide fish?

Looking forward to the late September trip I’ve got planned.
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Great write-up on the trip @jasmillo and @Kfish! Thanks for letting me tag along.

We had to work for the fish but that five fish stop was a lot of fun. Seemed that @Tallguy's black and purple fly was the hot fly.
 
I’m starting to get really stoked too. Last night I dreamt that everyone was waiting for me at the dock and I hadn’t started packing yet. “Oh crap… where’s my rain pants… better grab the 12wt….did I bring sunscreen…what about lunch…?” Don’t be that guy.
 
I got one on a cast and stripped fly, and effectively got a fish on the slide too when my troll strike fish came off after 10 seconds, but I hooked up 10 seconds later stripping my fly in. So mostly troll with some slide and bait stop action.

Getting a quad going was lots of fun, especially when Nick ran out and showed us how to hook up off the bow and converted it into a 5 fish going at once stop. It's been several years since I have been part of a quad hookup event, very nice.

I did well with a black and purple squid type fly, roughly 4" in length. Wish I had it to show, but it's possibly still attached at an albacore who is also towing roughly 85' of a rio 600 grain fly line behind him/her. That's a first, and it still something of a mystery how and why a 12 wt fly line just breaks under heavy pressure. Best guess is I stepped on it with a pebble caught in my boot tread (check your boots for small rocks, I found one when I was trying to figure out how my fly line broke) and caused some damage. Maybe also I caught a loop on something small and sharp somewhere, and maybe also a Rio fly line is past it's use by date when it gets to 3-4 years old after twice a year use. Hopefully not on that last one, that's crazy. But I did have a clean fly line break on a solidly heavy fish heading to Japan at high speed after a troll strike.

One interesting observation: just before gaff, one of my tuna puked up a bunch of small white krill, 1" long max sized. I don't really know how those krill move and what depth they are at, but I bet if you had time and money to burn, you could rope a tuna on an indicator and very deep nymph-like krill type pattern.
 
Phil K said:
I’m starting to get really stoked too. Last night I dreamt that everyone was waiting for me at the dock and I hadn’t started packing yet. “Oh crap… where’s my rain pants… better grab the 12wt….did I bring sunscreen…what about lunch…?” Don’t be that guy.
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Must be a Phil thing. Night before my trip, I dreamt that I overslept, couldn’t find a parking place, and about every other lateness trope out there.
 
Tallguy said:
I got one on a cast and stripped fly, and effectively got a fish on the slide too when my troll strike fish came off after 10 seconds, but I hooked up 10 seconds later stripping my fly in. So mostly troll with some slide and bait stop action.

Getting a quad going was lots of fun, especially when Nick ran out and showed us how to hook up off the bow and converted it into a 5 fish going at once stop. It's been several years since I have been part of a quad hookup event, very nice.

I did well with a black and purple squid type fly, roughly 4" in length. Wish I had it to show, but it's possibly still attached at an albacore who is also towing roughly 85' of a rio 600 grain fly line behind him/her. That's a first, and it still something of a mystery how and why a 12 wt fly line just breaks under heavy pressure. Best guess is I stepped on it with a pebble caught in my boot tread (check your boots for small rocks, I found one when I was trying to figure out how my fly line broke) and caused some damage. Maybe also I caught a loop on something small and sharp somewhere, and maybe also a Rio fly line is past it's use by date when it gets to 3-4 years old after twice a year use. Hopefully not on that last one, that's crazy. But I did have a clean fly line break on a solidly heavy fish heading to Japan at high speed after a troll strike.

One interesting observation: just before gaff, one of my tuna puked up a bunch of small white krill, 1" long max sized. I don't really know how those krill move and what depth they are at, but I bet if you had time and money to burn, you could rope a tuna on an indicator and very deep nymph-like krill type pattern.
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Bummer about the busted line Ed. If it was a RIO Leviathan, I have 2 that are 10+ years old and still holding up (knock on wood).

Per the krill, I remember a trip out of Garibaldi several years ago when they were puking up similar sized euphasiid looking things. As I recall they were being finicky that day. I carry some large krill patterns tied on live bait hooks for that reason. Haven't felt the need to fish them yet but maybe this year.
 
Tallguy said:
I got one on a cast and stripped fly, and effectively got a fish on the slide too when my troll strike fish came off after 10 seconds, but I hooked up 10 seconds later stripping my fly in. So mostly troll with some slide and bait stop action.

Getting a quad going was lots of fun, especially when Nick ran out and showed us how to hook up off the bow and converted it into a 5 fish going at once stop. It's been several years since I have been part of a quad hookup event, very nice.

I did well with a black and purple squid type fly, roughly 4" in length. Wish I had it to show, but it's possibly still attached at an albacore who is also towing roughly 85' of a rio 600 grain fly line behind him/her. That's a first, and it still something of a mystery how and why a 12 wt fly line just breaks under heavy pressure. Best guess is I stepped on it with a pebble caught in my boot tread (check your boots for small rocks, I found one when I was trying to figure out how my fly line broke) and caused some damage. Maybe also I caught a loop on something small and sharp somewhere, and maybe also a Rio fly line is past it's use by date when it gets to 3-4 years old after twice a year use. Hopefully not on that last one, that's crazy. But I did have a clean fly line break on a solidly heavy fish heading to Japan at high speed after a troll strike.

One interesting observation: just before gaff, one of my tuna puked up a bunch of small white krill, 1" long max sized. I don't really know how those krill move and what depth they are at, but I bet if you had time and money to burn, you could rope a tuna on an indicator and very deep nymph-like krill type pattern.
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That was a hot fly.

Here's the fly that caught me my fish. I think it was similar in color to yours.

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Tallguy said:
I got one on a cast and stripped fly, and effectively got a fish on the slide too when my troll strike fish came off after 10 seconds, but I hooked up 10 seconds later stripping my fly in. So mostly troll with some slide and bait stop action.

Getting a quad going was lots of fun, especially when Nick ran out and showed us how to hook up off the bow and converted it into a 5 fish going at once stop. It's been several years since I have been part of a quad hookup event, very nice.

I did well with a black and purple squid type fly, roughly 4" in length. Wish I had it to show, but it's possibly still attached at an albacore who is also towing roughly 85' of a rio 600 grain fly line behind him/her. That's a first, and it still something of a mystery how and why a 12 wt fly line just breaks under heavy pressure. Best guess is I stepped on it with a pebble caught in my boot tread (check your boots for small rocks, I found one when I was trying to figure out how my fly line broke) and caused some damage. Maybe also I caught a loop on something small and sharp somewhere, and maybe also a Rio fly line is past it's use by date when it gets to 3-4 years old after twice a year use. Hopefully not on that last one, that's crazy. But I did have a clean fly line break on a solidly heavy fish heading to Japan at high speed after a troll strike.

One interesting observation: just before gaff, one of my tuna puked up a bunch of small white krill, 1" long max sized. I don't really know how those krill move and what depth they are at, but I bet if you had time and money to burn, you could rope a tuna on an indicator and very deep nymph-like krill type pattern.
Click to expand...
I love this little write-up. First, my condolences on losing a fly line. I blew up a rod, so I sympathize. Second, your indicator comment just slays me and I hope that a certain party picks up on it. The real question is, would you use a swivel on your tuna indicator rig?

As to the rod blow-up: Kids, if you're silly enough to slide your own EVA foregrip on your inexpensive 12 weights that likely weren't designed for that, only use that grip if you really really need it to rest your arm a bit during a long battle with a real donkey, as that is what you put it there for. DO NOT get cocky and hoist a green tuna with both grips for a quick gaffing, else...KABOOM! I am missing the entire middle ferrule, nowhere to be seen. I think it may have vaporized.
 
Matt B said:
I love this little write-up. First, my condolences on losing a fly line. I blew up a rod, so I sympathize. Second, your indicator comment just slays me and I hope that a certain party picks up on it. The real question is, would you use a swivel on your tuna indicator rig?

As to the rod blow-up: Kids, if you're silly enough to slide your own EVA foregrip on your inexpensive 12 weights that likely weren't designed for that, only use that grip if you really really need it to rest your arm a bit during a long battle with a real donkey, as that is what you put it there for. DO NOT get cocky and hoist a green tuna with both grips for a quick gaffing, else...KABOOM! I am missing the entire middle ferrule, nowhere to be seen. I think it may have vaporized.
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I was nearby and it was an explosive snap just at the end game. There are no easy tuna, especially near the boat. But, the fish was landed, so consolation...
Steve
 
Cabezon said:
I was nearby and it was an explosive snap just at the end game. There are no easy tuna, especially near the boat. But, the fish was landed, so consolation...
Steve
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Yeah that fish died at the same time as the rod. RIP
The dead fish does get a second life as dinner...
I have not yet found a use for my now two broken 12 weights.
The skipper yesterday said something about if you have 2 12 weights you know you have a problem...
 
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