Southern Oregon Late Season Run

Nofish · 10-27-2003, 05:15 AM

Maybe I should retitle my post "finicky late season tuna". In our first ever late October run, the "finicky" label held true. I will start out by saying that our boat got skunked. But I do have a good story to tell, and we did see albacore and albacore were caught by the small fleet that chased them.

We left Brookings at first light and ran to the numbers that I punched into the chart plotter based on the last Terrafin shot. We put the gear in at about 7:30 in 59 degree water at about 22 nm west of Brookings. There was one other tuna chasing boat that launched out of Brookings with us, but several out of Crescent City. As the fleet converged on the tuna grounds, we were probably the furthest boat north. Some of the familiar names from the Bay Area Tuna Club site were out there - Reef Madness and Heart Attack.

We trolled out to about 28 nm but were stuck at 59.3 degrees. The guys to the south of us saw jumpers in 57-58 degree water but no hookups. They kindly shared their numbers (about 9 miles from us) so we began to tack back inside looking for the cooler break. When we finally found the break, it was spectacular, running from the mid 58's to the high 59's in just a few hundred yards. There were even better breaks located later in the day. We found water later in the day that was close to 62 degrees! Anyway, we did spot jumping and breezing tuna...but I'll be darned if we could get them to bite.

Meanwhile, to the south, the Crescent City boys finally boxed one late in the morning, then began scratching a fish here and there. They again shared numbers, but we felt we had tuna where we were and felt we would solve there lockjaw sooner or later.

We tried fish traps, cedar plugs, flourocarbon leaders - the guys that got 'em were getting bit with a bit of everything. One of the boats even chummed up a school with dead anchovies and had them boiling around the boat (which I don't think resulted in any hookups).

In the end, we put about 80 miles on the trip log and enjoyed the beautiful sunny (we were wearing T shirts) day and very very flat ocean. We saw killer whales, lots of different pelagic sea birds and TUNA! Everything I have read about late season tuna is true. You folks may want to look at the Bay Area Tuna Club site for the winning version of this story. Like the New York Yankees, we will end the season with a "loss" - but not really. I cannot wait until next year.

Thanks everyone for your help in making our season such a good one. Bob

skein · 10-27-2003, 07:29 AM

Great report, Nofish, and yep, you got skunked but you don't end up in the "loss" column. You were there, you saw the fish and whales and birds, and you smelled the salt and touched the water. Doesn't sound like a loss to me.

Nice way to end the season.

Skein

Mark Mc · 10-27-2003, 07:35 AM

Hi Bob, thanks for the report & for your willingness to go after them. At least you demonstrated that there are still tuna in Oregon waters in late October. See Ya.......Mark

Miss B Haven · 10-27-2003, 07:56 AM

Sounds like a lot more fun than spending the weekend on a barn roof! I stil lhaven't got to see a dang Orca, that woulda been worth the trip for me!

What's with the "No Bite" on these fish this time of year? They getting ready to do a spawning run or what? It started up here what, a month ago? :whazzup:

Marty · 10-27-2003, 02:15 PM

Thanks for the report. Our last trip out was Oct 5, and we also had lots of jumpers and ended up landing 4. There was another boat fishing in the area and they landed 3, and all of his fish were caught on pink and 2 out of the 4 on our boat were also on a small pink jet head. Something to think about!!!

Thanks again for the reports

Marty

Nofish · 10-27-2003, 03:02 PM

Marty,
Thanks for the tip about small and pink. I had some small jethead jigs, but never tried them. Unfortunately, there were several things I should have tried, but didn't. Something to think until next summer I guess. Another observation of interest, the guys that got into them to the south of me were fish around some sea mounts...kinda goes along with some of the discussion topics that have been covered by this board. Cheers...Bob

KeyWest · 10-27-2003, 06:31 PM

Great report - thanks! Any day on the water like that is much better than the yard work this weekend. By the way - what is a "fish trap" - I'm not familiar with that term.

Dean

Mark Mc · 10-27-2003, 08:20 PM

Dean, "Fishtrap" is a particular brand of plastic swim baits.

http://www.fishtraplures.com/

There are a few people up here who seem to be obsessed with them.

andiamo · 10-27-2003, 09:34 PM

Thanks for the late fishing story thrill [img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img] . Now that you are probably done with fishing for the season :depressed: , you may want to take a look at the weather forcast. If you keep your boat east of the coastal range, the night-time temps are going to go below 30 degrees in a couple days :shocked: . Time to winterize before it is too late

Mark Mc · 10-28-2003, 04:39 PM

The rest of the reports for this particular tuna adventure are at:

web page

Mello-Yello · 10-28-2003, 04:49 PM

Good report Bob! As a wiseman (a particular salty-dog) once said..."sometimes you just have to go and put a hairy eyeball on it"...

It seems the hardest thing to do this year was accept that a particular trip would be the last for the year. It was easier for me, since I broke the bottom of my motor on the highway enroute to the tuna launching pad (boat ramp), and this was one week before my elk hunting would start.

To next year!

...good grief, I'm toasting everything today....

To toasting everything!