washington tuna clasic this weekend anyone doing it?

[Jake B]

Just curious if anyone is going to be doing the tuna tourney this weekend in westport? we are heading down friday am. will post report when we get back. Leaving my boat at home and crewing on my buddies.

 

[C-Dawg]

Who are you teaming with? I talked with a bunch of the guys from BD that were planning scouting trips Friday. Also talked with some folks that went out on Wednesday. They averaged about 15 fish per boat. Nothing really big, maybe upper teen average. They all went out about 42 miles.

 

[sportner]

Three of us went out of Ilwaco yesterday in my friend's 24' Osprey, 48 miles west, temp. 61.5 deg., and blue water. We had 25 when we headed back at 12:30 pm. The Tuna are there and the weather and sea looks good for tomorrow.

 

[C-Dawg]

...the weather and sea looks good for tomorrow.

Sheesh, the swell forcast is something like 3' at 20 seconds. That's a mightly flat ocean.

When I was cleaning salmon in my slip at Westport last week, the guy in the next slip was cleaning tuna. Evidently he doesn't get to salmon fish much so he offered to trade me a salmon filet for some tuna loins. Grilled fresh tuna is awesome!

 

[canal charterguy]

We made our first time tuna trip on Friday with our 24 Osprey and found fish 31 miles a little SW once we hit 59.5 degrees. Ended up with 14 on the troll and very pleased. Flat ocean awesome experience. Could have made the run with the dory and would have spent far less in fuel. Thanks to Roger (SEAdNA)on this site. His trolling info and experience fishing out of Neah Bay was very useful! Great eating and a nice change from salmon.

 

[rogerbum]

We made our first time tuna trip on Friday with our 24 Osprey and found fish 31 miles a little SW once we hit 59.5 degrees. Ended up with 14 on the troll and very pleased. Flat ocean awesome experience. Could have made the run with the dory and would have spent far less in fuel. Thanks to Roger (SEAdNA)on this site. His trolling info and experience fishing out of Neah Bay was very useful! Great eating and a nice change from salmon.

Sounds like a great first trip! Glad to hear that I was somehow helpful. I haven't made a tuna run yet this year but I'm hoping that the warm water will move in a little closer to Neah Bay by the time I'm back out there next week. I might have to put the boat on a trailer and take it south to get closer to the warm water. However, Neah Bay is still putting out a lot of king salmon (me and a buddy of mine caught 7 between Sat. and Sunday), and it's a bit hard to leave that behind.

 

[Jake B]

well this was our first time fishing tuna or at all in westport. I went with my buddy in his 22' sea sport. we had a rough morning in the blue water. couldn't get an up to date water pic so had to go off a 4 day old one. we found blue water 10 miles closer than we thought. but just no life and we were not feeling it. so we ran out to our initial spot. same thing no life and not feeling it we mad a final move and decided we had burned too much time running and needed to stick it out at the next spot and make something happen.

we decided to try and find the water break and look for some pigs in the blue/green water. 5 miles before we hit that a buddy boat we passed was hooked up so we ran a mile or so below them and set gear. was only able to fish a couple more hours due to check in time and fuel burn was higher than we thought. ended up with 16 in that time and lost a handful of others. fishing westport makes me wish la push had live bait. we got into a decent school on the last stop and headed in.

we ended up 9th overall out of 55 teams. we were happy with that. in the top the weights were not that much different. wish westport was closer we would go there more if it was.
our 5 fish we checked for tourney were
28 lbs
27.8
24.54
21.67
21.22

mihgt be a couple tenths off on weight going off memory

here are some pics

 

[C-Dawg]

That's awesome, Jake! 9th is a pretty good finish, too, considering some of the teams out there.

Do you know how far from the marina you ran until you hit the right temp?

If I use a planning factor of 2.6 mpg and the rule of thirds (1/3 out, 1/3 in, 1/3 reserv) I have a range of about 35 miles out. If I add a 15 gallon aux tank, I can go out about 47 miles. I'm seriously considering trying a trip next year if I get lucky with flat seas on a weekend.

 

[rogerbum]

That's awesome, Jake! 9th is a pretty good finish, too, considering some of the teams out there.

Do you know how far from the marina you ran until you hit the right temp?

If I use a planning factor of 2.6 mpg and the rule of thirds (1/3 out, 1/3 in, 1/3 reserv) I have a range of about 35 miles out. If I add a 15 gallon aux tank, I can go out about 47 miles. I'm seriously considering trying a trip next year if I get lucky with flat seas on a weekend.

Rick,

Don't forget a few factors:
1) You will be trolling at 6-8 kts for several hours (maybe 8 depending on the bite). That can easily add 40+ miles to the trip total. E.g. it's not just out and back there's a lot of moderate speed trolling.
2) If you go out or come back at 5-6kts, you can get 6MPG. That's how some guys conserve fuel and extend their range considerably. E.g. with 3-4 guys, you can start at night and run out at 5-6kts with each guy taking a 2-3 hour shift at the wheel while the others sleep. This uses very little fuel to get out and you're very unlikely to hole the boat hitting anything at that speed (e.g. it's a fairly safe speed to travel in complete darkness).
3) You need a LOT of ice if you catch more than a few fish. You need at least one 120qt cooler filled with 2/3 ice and 1/3 sea water to serve as the initial cooling bin. Put the tuna in there for about 2 hours to get them cold fast and then transfer to ice. You'll need another two-three large coolers for fish and those need to have a good amount of ice (you'll use a lot just cooling the fish down). The ice will weigh you down and will decrease the fuel mileage a bit. We take 5 large coolers with us on the Tomcat and fill both fish boxes with ice to boot. I don't think we can safely carry more than 30 albacore unless we take the heads off and gut them at sea (which is legal BTW).

I've made runs of 35-40 miles each way in my previous 22 to go salmon fishing but the trolling on site was much slower and I usually limited in a couple of hours. I only had the 20 gal tanks (as opposed to the 25 gal on the newer 22's). I felt like a 70-80 mile round trip was my limit but that was because I was going out and coming back at 16-20kts. If I was going to do tuna out of Westport or Ilwaco, I think I'd rather set things up to go out slow and to come back at cruise. I'd try to avoid carrying the extra fuel as that's one more thing to store (in addition to all the extra coolers and ice).

 

[Jake B]

we went as far as 48 or so miles but hit blue water around 25 and got most all of our fish around 32 miles. the deck space is what is limiting me to take the dory out for them. essp. if you want to run live bait that tank adds a bunch of weight and on my buddies SS he has his on his off shore bracket.
but even if you just plan on troll fishing the amount of ice is a lot with no holds. but it is do able. If I do take my boat out i would take all cloth out of cabin and use cuddy for ice storage. we took a little over 1/2 a tote for this trip. we had 120 quart cooler and 2 large kill bags stuffed with ice and half a fish box. we were heavy on ice but we only got 16. would of been perfect for 30-40. kill bags help a ton for keeping fish ice cold and using less ice.
and that is true you do troll all day long on the main.
with the right weather its deff do able in a dory with the right planning though.