Thanks to all that made a trip like this seem not so impossible.
Thanks for looking out for us throughout the day, the ocean was bumpy on the ride out so instead of taking the lump of short waves at around 25 miles we put out the gear on a westerly course with a wpt of Tuna town, from the previous terrafin shots I knew the water was there.
This trip started out with the PLAN of being a 50 mile boat ride in the 3 and 4 seas. so with 120 gallons of fuel on board and 2 150 Qt coolers we set out. got to the ramp at 0410 launched and waited for the least bit of light at around 0440 we left depoe bay.
20 miles out we were in warm water but I wasn't so sure of the color due to the cloud cover and lack of light at 0615 so we kept on going another 5 miles. the captain said why beat ourselves to death for 17 kts when we can have a nice 7kt troll and be there in 2 hours...and so we trolled and trolled and trolled some more. we saw all manner of birds and a few albatross were eyeballing our baits. no porpoise a few sharks here and there one large fin around a floating log unknown type but light grey an relatively long...
1130-1200 first fish.long rod with straight 40 Lb mono and green and white sevenstrand clone straight out of the package. High fives all around blood on the deck and proof that there are Tuna out here, we all fell a whole lot less stupid now
troll troll troll Same rod goes off again around 1300 ok thats 2 fish
please note the cleanliness of Dylans shirt in the before and after pics I asked if he had bibs He now knows why I asked. this is one of our last fish.
Our little guy, Aaron on gets his first albacore tuna as well
Dylan and Aaron had not seen what happens on a handline and trolling along and Aaron asks where one of the splashers was we all look at the wake and Dan and I both shout in unison FISH!!! dylan dons gloves and attempts his first handline fish he valiantly struggles gaining a few knots and loosing a little, he gets into a rythmn and leaders the fish into the boat.
after that most of the fish came in ones and 2's we always tried to leave the rod in the holder for multiples but didn't happen alot. our best stop was a quad, long rod goes off followed by a diverboard. still turning on the long rod fish and the outside rod goes off followed by a long handline.
we all decided that 5 o'clock would be the official cutoff time. so as the magic hour approached we tried to organize the stuff for the run in. BAM! a double on the long rod and the outside rod we wrestle those fish in, and get the rods back out...slowly start to pull in lines and clear gear keeping the long rods out looking for that last possible hookup but I guess the fish gods wanted us to end on a double. 42 miles out at 5:00 and back in port Depoe bay at 7:00.
I started down my calling tree at 6:00 as that was my float plan arrival time. let the wife know our position and success and arrival time...
Got a few calls out to the dogs and such thanks for posting Andy and Ray.
Carked fish until 10:00 and got ready for Halibut the next day. bed at 11:30 and up at 0400 for halibut...
A few notes from the day that I will remember.. Roy, thanks for the gear loans the diver boards never touched the water but I tried the chains and cedar plugs. the chains got one fish and it was the silver chain. I fished the weighted one on a rod with a mexican flag and It got one as well. green was the color of the day started to change all of the gear over and got more fish because of it rootbeer also scored a few fish. cedar plugs DID NOT catch one fish they were in the spread all day. all were on standard clones grass skirts from sevenstrand and zukers. I had one of my homemade lures out all day as well and got nothing on it.
And thats all I have to say about that!
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