Tuesday Depoe Bay Tuna

Nofish · 07-09-2003, 04:53 AM

We arrived Monday evening and after a fitful night's sleep at Troller's Lodge (thanks for the tips everyone), were in the water at 0515 and headed for tuna land.

Ocean conditions were not as forecast with a pretty stiff southwest wind and corresponding windwaves and swell. We hoped the ocean would lay down but it never did...more on that later.

Headed west hoping to find warm water at about 25 miles. At 30 miles and about 2.5 hours later(slow going due to sloppy conditions) we were still in 58.2 degree water. Put the gear out and 30 minutes later, had first ever tuna blood spilled on the deck of my 20' Bayliner. We found a temp break that went from 57.6 to 58.1 in just a couple hundred yards and managed to pick up 3 there, all on purple and black. We missed a couple of others and were getting bit on just about every pass. Break was at:
44 55.34 124 48.69 - about 33 nm off Depoe.

Things got really sloppy for my boat and at that point, we decided to begin trolling in. Picked up one fish, then had a double hookup at 26.8 nm (58.2 degrees) but lost them both. At that point, we pulled the gear and carefully ran back to Depoe. I just was too spooked with the ocean not getting better. Heard other Salty Dogs with bigger boats doing pretty well. We ended up with a very nice grade of fish between 20 and 30 pounds. We had the usual assortment of jigs out but they only wanted purple and black.

We ended up putting about 90 miles on the trip log but thanks to the very miserly 3.0 liter engine, only burned 22 gallons of gas. I was very pleased about that. Thank very much to everyone for the posting and information so we could make this trip. Look forward to going again, but on a nicer day. Bob aka Nofish

CAPT KUJO · 07-09-2003, 06:42 AM

GREAT REPORT! [img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img]
and Cogradulations on FIRST BLOOD

corrirod · 07-09-2003, 07:00 AM

[img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img]

puffins crew · 07-09-2003, 07:08 AM

WTG Nofish, Thanks for the report. Congrats on first tuna blood. BTW, do those fish bleed alot?? :grin:

Peace, Tom

Miss B Haven · 07-09-2003, 07:41 AM

Congrats Nofish

, going to have to change your moniker now though. :grin:

stick flicker · 07-09-2003, 08:01 AM

Way to go Nofish, I want to spill the blood of a tuna on my deck soon. Whats it feel like to go out that far and come back with the silver bullets? How big is your boat?

Nofish · 07-09-2003, 09:24 AM

Stick Flicker,
It felt pretty darn good to have those things bleed in my own boat. Having to turn around and "leave em biting" was tough however. I have a 20' Bayliner and when conditions appeared to be getting worse instead of better, we felt we should head in - there was a lot of ocean between us and the harbor. Conditions were plenty tolerable for the bigger boys however and it sounded as if they really cleaned up. Get after them when you can.