NW Outdoor Explorer

I have not been fishing much this year due to other activities and priorities like starting a lavender farm and my oldest daughter getting married. Now that the dust has settled, I am getting some good opportunities to get out and kill some fish.

This particular opportunity, I was invited out on a friends boat for a late season tuna trip. We could not have asked for better water and weather conditions for early October. There was a fog forecast that kept many sitting on their couches. This was very fortunate for us.

We all gathered in Ilwaco, WA for an early launch. We had to wait for the bait dock to open. With the live bait comfy in the tank, we headed out. The seas were relatively calm and there was a light fog. Visibility looked to be about 3-4 miles. We headed west to about the 30 line where we started our troll.

It was not long before we got our first screamer. Tried to get a second on, but no luck. Tossed a few handfuls of chum in the water and started our live bait action. Tuna started jumping around us and the show was on. This action lasted about an hour or so. About twelve on the deck before it shut off. We did a little cleanup and processed the fish while getting back on the troll. Minutes later, we found the school again. This time, live bait, iron, it did not matter. Whatever we threw at them, fish on. Again, this lasted about an hour or so before it turned off. This time, fifteen or so on the deck. Rinse and repeat, a little cleanup and processing while on the troll for a few minutes before the next hookup and frenzy.

Because this boat has a self bailing deck, we tried to keep as much blood off the deck, but it was so crazy at times, there was no way to prevent it. Eventually, the sharks came. We had what looked like to be about a 10 ft blue shark started circling us. He stayed with us the rest of the day. It made for some interesting times bringing in the tuna.

We had one stop one of our crew was magic with the iron. We started calling him ‘Ironman’. There was a school about 50 ft off the bow and they would not come to us. Ironman would toss over some iron and within a twitch or two, he had fish on. He would hand off the rod and grab another to toss a jig over. Seconds again and fish on. We repeated this process for quite some time. My arms were getting so tired, I had to take a break and man the gaff. Before 1pm, we had as much as we could hold on the boat and had to stop. It is a sad day you have to leave jumpers.

We heard others on the radio to the south of us that seemed to be struggling. We happened to be in the right spot at the right time. The ocean was flat that made it easier to spot the jumpers and the fog never showed up. I feel very fortunate to have experienced what tuna fishing is supposed to be like.

On the ride back in, we hit a shark and had to remove it from the prop. The entire day, there were young sunfish in large schools jumping tricking us to think they were tuna from afar. We even had a whale jump out of the water in front of us and we had to stop to make sure we did not hit it. It was an incredible day.

We took notice of the wind and wave forecast and started planning for this trip about a week out. If all the stars and planets aligned, we could potentially get into salmon, tuna, halibut and bottom fish all in the same trip.

The day before, the forecast improved even more. We were expecting less than a 5 mph wind and swells about 2 ft @ 12 seconds. Well, reality was not quite rainbows and unicorns. 🙂 The wind felt like 10 mph + and the swells were more like 3 ft @ 5 seconds. It was quite choppy. I managed to find a speed and trim that allowed us to travel without getting too beat up.

We first got the salmon rods out and baited up. We tried at depths of about 100 ft and a second at about 150 ft. We think we had one drive by, but after 30 minutes of no action, we called it thinking we would try again on the way in.

Unfortunately, the tuna water pushed too far off shore and we could not fish tuna this day. We got to our first halibut location in about 75 minutes. This was more of a scouting spot. Our buddy boat was a little slower than us so they just continued to push on to our primary halibut spot. Water depth at this location was 700 ft. We dropped our lines and begun our drift. After about 30 minutes, we managed to pull in one good sized black cod (sable fish). We fished another few minutes with no action and decided to pull lines and push on to our primary location.

After another 45 minute run, we arrived at our primary halibut location. Our buddy boat already had two halibut in the boat. The water depth here was 900 ft. We dropped our lines and begun our drift. It took some time to get our first hookup, but it was worth the wait. We had our first halibut in the boat.

We got a couple lings, a few more black cod and a rock fish in about the same time our buddy boat got two more halibut. What the hell were we doing wrong? Fishing the same gear with the same bait on about the same drift line. We started to doubt methods about the same time our one and only manual rod got doubled over and line was getting pulled out. 🙂 FISH ON!!!

After about 20 minutes reeling this manual rod, I was starting to feel a little like an episode of Wicked Tuna. My wife and I took turns reeling. Our arms were starting to feel like wet noodles. This fish was fighting pretty good most of the way up. I do not know exactly how long it took us to reel that fish, but it felt like hours. It was well worth it. It was the biggest halibut of the day. I seriously doubt I will fish halibut again without an electric reel. They are not cheap, but after this, it would be worth every penny. 🙂

Our buddy boat managed to get all five of their halibut and started to head back. At this time, we had three in the boat and were looking for our last. We continued fishing for another 45 minutes before we decided to call it. Unfortunately, this pushed us well beyond our window to fish salmon on the way in.

Going back always seems to be smoother sailing than coming out. Dialed in the trim and flew back at about 30-35 mph. 10 miles from shore, we hit something without warning and cut the engines. It was quite a thud and I was nervous to see the damage. Raised both motors and saw a carcass float off. It looked to be a shark. Luckily, there was no damage to the motors and after a short piss break, we were back on plane and heading in.

It was a great day on the water with some good friends.

Who does not like an early boat limit of nice sized coho? People who fish like fishing, but they do not necessarily want to spend all day doing it unless they are just out to catch and release. This was not one of those days.

We pulled away from the dock just after 7am. Executed a quick stop at the bait dock on the way out. It was an outgoing tide, but not a huge tide change. The bar was relatively calm. We got just outside of the south jetty and dropped our lines. We spotted a boat next to us with a net out and within minutes, we had our first fish on. It was a nice sized coho and a keeper to boot. Not much longer, we were getting bites and more fish in the boat. We could see the bulk of the fleet on the horizon as we were trolling toward them. We had our limit well before we got to them. By 10:30, we were on our way back to the dock with our boat limit. The tide was still going out. 🙂

The early coho fishing this year has been great for a number of anglers so far. I really hope they do not decide to close the ocean like they did last year.

When the ocean salmon season opened up a week ago, I was reading a number of reports about early limits of both chinook and coho. Due to weather and ocean conditions, we decided to wait. It was a hard week of anxiety for sure.

It was finally time. Had an early wake up call and hit the road by 5am to get to Ilwaco by 7am. We got to the Ilwaco ramp as planned to find a long line. Apparently with the extreme low tide, two boats broke skegs on one lane of the ramp, so many were reluctant to use it.

After about 30 minutes, we were finally on our way out to the Big Blue. It was low slack tide and the bar was relatively flat. We took a turn to the north with hopes of finding some chinook. Conditions were good for about 30 knots to the hunting grounds. Got our lines in the water and were trolling by 8am. We tried deep and shallow by the condos and beyond with no luck. We spent the better part of an hour before we decided to call it and change locations.

We were hearing spotty reports of catches down by CR. Again, the conditions were good for about a 30 knot transit and we were at the CR within minutes. The fleet seemed to be concentrated here and we did some a couple nets flying, but it was not hot by any means. We dropped our lines in the water and tried our luck. Again, we tried deep and shallow with a few drive byes here and there. A couple of native coho were let go before a couple hours passed.

The fleet had thinned out and we were virtually the only boat left in the area. It was like the light switch turned on. We were all getting bites and before you knew it, we had five in the box. The school dissipated after some time and bites were farther apart, but we had two more in the box. We only needed one more for a boat limit. The two hardest fish to catch sometimes is the first one and that damn last one. 🙂 We spent another hour or so trying to find that last biter, but had no luck. We had to call it a day with one short.

The ocean was still relatively calm and allowed for a quick trip in over a high slack tide bar. We got docked and started the wash down. With the boat now moored for the ocean season, no more waiting for fools at the ramp.

Overall, it was a great ocean opener for the Aquaholic and fingers are crossed for more to come.

With the dwindling salmon fishery, thank you WDFW and ODFW, we are looking to other fisheries to keep fish in the freezer. I recently got invited to buddy boat to halibut grounds out of Garibaldi. Since our springer season was pretty much a bust due to the pandemic, we accepted the invite.

The plan was to launch at 5am and get an early start. Apparently, the Port of Garibaldi has some pretty messed up scheduling and launch rules that caused us to scramble for a transient mooring the night before. They do not even open the ramp for launching till 6am. WTF!!! Also, due to the pandemic, they only have one lane on each side open which caused a huge backup when they did finally open. Needless to say, I will probably not be taking my boat to launch out of Garibaldi very often.

Anyway, even with the overnight mooring, we did not quite get out at 5am. We did manage to leave the dock shortly after 5:30am with plans to follow another boat out to their numbers. It was max ebb at the jaws and the crossing was pretty rough, but we had no problem getting out. Once out in the ocean, it was not quite as smooth as we had hoped. My buddy boat could not quite keep up with the other boat we had planned to follow out to their secret spot and had to call off the chase. Fortunately, my buddy boat had their own set of numbers as a backup and we started our very rough trek out.

Two hours and twenty minutes later, we arrived. We had to make one stop on the way to allow for a little chumming. One of my mates did not get quite enough sleep the night before. 🙂 We baited up and dropped our lines. As this was my first halibut trip, I really had no idea what to expect. It took almost 5 minutes to drop the line to depth. It felt like forever. Within 3 minutes of bouncing the bottom, we had a double hookup. We were extremely fortunate to have a great friend that let us use two of his brand new electric reels. I am not sure we would have had as much fun without them. Even with the electric reels, it took more than 15 minutes to reel the fish in with the occasional tugs and runs. My friend on the other reel got his up first. It was a pretty large rock fish. To the cooler it went. Mine got to the surface a few minutes later and low and behold, it was a halibut. WOW, this halibut fishing is easy. 🙂 We continued to hookup within minutes of bouncing the bottom for about another 2 hours before the bite turned off. Unfortunately, we only landed the one halibut. Better to be lucky than good sometimes.

With the one halibut per person per trip and only six halibut per year, this could be a very expensive fishery, especially of you happen to not land a halibut on any one trip. As expensive as it may be, I could see us continuing to make halibut runs from time to time.

WOW! I have mixed feelings about the fishing trip today. We took our old neighbors from Sherwood, Mark and his son Alex, out for a second day hoping to repeat what we experienced yesterday. The drive out to Ilwaco was typical. Nothing to report. Got to the boat and prepped the crab traps. Today, we were going to make the effort to set a line. Launched by 8am and made our way around to the bait dock. Loaded a couple pounds into the live well and started with a pound on ice. Out to the big blue we go. The weather synopsis was indicating even less wind than yesterday. The wind waves and swells were supposed to be about the same. Crossing the bar was a non event. No waves or swells and almost full speed ahead. Once we got outside, the ocean was as flat as I have seen in a while. We raced 40mph to the crab grounds north of the jetty. Set our line and as long as we were stopped, decided to throw out the lines. Within minutes, we got our first bite. It was short lived. After a couple head shakes almost to the boat, it was gone. We trolled for a few more minutes before we decided to head further north. Again at 40mph, we reach our spot in just a few minutes. Weeks prior, this is where we were getting nothing but Chinooks. Hoping for the same, we start our troll. We tried several depths, all directions and a few different spots without so much as a nibble. Just a little disappointing. Listening to the radio, it sounded like most of the fleet was back out at the canyon in 300-500 FOW. That was a bit farther out than I really wanted to go, but we decided to make the treck. With the ocean as flat as it was and flying at 40mph again, it did not take long till we got out to 300 FOW. I c ould start to see the fleet on the horizon, but really did not want to go out any further. We dropped our lines and started out troll to the east. within minutes, we got our first bite. I am thinking I made the right decision. This one makes it to the net and we now have our first fish in the boat. A few minutes later and we now have another fish on. This one turns out to be native and had to be let go. This continues consistently, but we managed to lose several and the ones we did get to the net were all native. It was finally time to call it a day and go pull the crab pots. I was a bit disappointed to only have one in the boat, but it was not due to lack of fish on. With the ocean still flat as a small lake, we fly to the crab traps and begin our pulls. If success is gauged by the number of crabs in the traps, then it was an awesome day crabbing. Unfortunately, after the females and smalls were tossed back, we only ended up with two keepers. It was an awesome day with plenty of action, just not much to take home today. Cannot wait till next week.

The weather synopsis is not always 100% accurate. The ocean conditions on paper looked to be similar to the flat conditions we experienced last week. Reality was something a bit different. Crossing the bar was not too bad, but once outside, the water never layed down. We headed straight out West from the river till we started to spot boats on the horizon. We got our lines in quick hoping for that first drop in bite. Unfortunately, it did not happen this time. After a few minutes, we pulled the lines and headed out further west. We got into the thick of the fleet and dropped in. It was not too long, we got our first bite. It was a short chinook and had to be released. Almost immediately after the release, we got our second bite. This one was a very nice keeper coho. We had a few more drive byes before the bite turned off a little. At this time, the rough seas claimed its first victim on the Aquaholic. It was overboard chumming time. 🙂 We were far enough out now, we turned the boat toward shore and trolled with the wind and waves. This made for a better ride, but was not calm by a long way. Trying a couple different spots and different directions, we found the fish again. It was not long before we had our boat limit after some short biters, drive byes and one other short chinook. Today was a good day. We were off the water by noon heading home with the boat this week. It needed to be fueled up and the grass pressure washed of the bottom. Next week is the Buoy 10 opening weekend and we will be ready.

We are a week late due to some mechanical problems on the truck, but the wait was definitely worth it.

Last week, we had a small issue with the truck not starting. I first thought it was a failed starter, but with a replacement starter, it still would not engage. At least I thought it was not engaging. After some investigating, I discovered the flywheel was spinning free from the engine. As a result, the torque converted welded itself to the adapter plate and also had to be replaced. After a couple $$$$, we were back on the road and ready to go fishing.

Got the boat launched and headed over to the bait dock. I have the live well mounted and wanted to try it out to keep the bait fresh this year. Loaded up with 4 pounds of bait. We were surprised by the size of the bait this year. Pretty large means not as many per pound. We should be ok. The bar crossing was ok today and ocean was a little rough. We headed straight out to one of my goto spots that seemed to produce more than not last year. Getting the bait out of the live well and trying to hook them on the leaders proved to be a little tricky. For some reason, they just would not stay still for us to run hooks through them. 🙂 Got the lines in the water and before too long, fish on! We had very good success last year running just a diver and leader with anchovies. We decided to keep it simple and do the same this year. It seems to still be working. The time between bites was a bit long, but the day overall was consistent. Lots of fish caught. Many wild coho had to be let go. Even managed to hook one chinook on a spinner, but it was a bit short and had to be let go as well. One of my crew caught his first keeper and even though it was legal size, he decided it was not big enough and let it go. Well, the fish gods did not seem to like that and rewarded him with natives the rest of the day. The rest of the boat limited out with some nice coho. The first trip of the season did not disappoint.

This was the best day of fishing so far.

Crossed the bar a little late.  I think it was about 0830.  A good hour after the tide change.

On our way out, we started seeing boats returning from the ocean.  Holy crap, did we miss the bite????

Our plan was to head north, but with several boats returning from the buoy line, we decided to see if we can still make something happen from where they were.  Good thing we did, because it was pretty much lights out from the moment we dropped our lines in the water.  We mush have caught 25-30 fish before we got our boat limit of 8 fish.  Less that 3 hours and we were done.  The only unfortunate thing was no Chinook.  It was a coho rodeo for sure.

Another back to back weekend.  With the projections so grim, I am trying to take every opportunity I can to get out on the water and stake my claim before my upcoming week long buoy 10 trip.

Today, much of my regular crew could not make it opening up seats for a backup crew member and someone new I just met.  It is always a pleasure to get someone new out with us when we can.  They usually bring some good luck.

We crossed the bar at the end of the outgoing and it was a bit rough.  On top of that, it was a bit foggy and visibility was low.  Did not quite need the radar, but it was in standby just in case.

We started out to the North.  After a couple crossed lines and getting our bearings, it was game on.  The new guy brings one in the boat.  I will take a little of the new guy luck anytime.  🙂

We continued the troll for a bit.  Found a nice rip and followed it out to deeper water.  Had a couple more bites, lost some and tossed back some natives.  The fog started to lift and we found ourselves in the middle of the charter fleet and about 150 or so other boats.  It was crazy how we all migrated to the same spot.  We watched 4 or 5 nets fly around us.  We could not manage to get another bite.  The odds were not in our favor.  It was time to move.

The ocean was pretty flat and I was able to cruise again near top speed to my special spot.  Dropped lines in the water and immediately started to get bites.  Some more natives had to be released.  We did finally manage to get our second fish in the boat.

We were seeing pretty good action, but not many keepers to be had.  We finished the day with just the two keepers.  These two keepers happened to be the first salmon of 2018 for these two guys.  That made my day.