Live Bait, Central Coast

[Pilar]

Sorry not here much lately, job requires travel and I have no access at home or on the road. Notice the time, pretty much the only access at home is when all others are sleeping.

Anyway I had an idea. Why don't we try to lease the old Ore-Aqua hatchery ponds at the end of the crab-boil road in Newport. This is now known as Carallvo seafoods. Must be 20 concrete ponds there that are not used anymore. The infrastructure is still there. Why not fill a couple of these ponds with seawater and big fat green back anchovies?

So how do we find out who owns this place? Where do we get bait to put in the ponds? Who would buy live anchovies for TUNA! fishing on the central coast? How would we get the bait to the boats? Who would run this bait station?

I would buy some everytime I went out. I do not want to spend $300, run all friggin day and then dump four hundred pounds of unused ice to catch just one stinkin TUNA! ever again.

What do you guys think?

[flatocean]

Voted yes, but cost is relevant

[Billfisher]

Sounds like a Co-Op Idea. Guys "buy in" via either cash, labor, or both. Sometimes you have scheduled days to "work the bait operation," sometimes you fish, and enjoy the live bait. Co-Op members would enjoy cut rate bait (which sounds like a good business name) and the others would help finance our operation. If this works, then the charters might jump on board and start a different angle of attack!

I have three days off a week, and the ability to help. Now we need to call upon our collective expertise (ifish lawyers, ifish investors, and ifish small business owners) to help make this dream come true.

[Reelentless]

I do not want to spend $300, run all friggin day and then dump four hundred pounds of unused ice to catch just one stinkin TUNA! ever again.

Amen!

[Pilar]

That's kinda what I had in mind. We work well together on some other things .. we could do that here too. How do we get the bait? How do they do this in Ilwaco? Does anyone know where those 'chovies come from?

This could work. And ya know the reason it hasn't happened yet is cause no one sicced the dogs on it.

Release the hounds!

[Zodiac-Fisherman]

John,

I'm not sure how well those chovies would fare in concrete ponds. They are very fragile and need constant fresh saltwater.

In ilwaco they use lights at night and they net up the baitfish. I'm guessing they use some kind of chum to attract the bait.

[ron m]

COOL IDEA!
Lights atrack baitfish, they may not need to chum in Ilwaco. The pumps would have to work well and if the ponds are deep enough and large enough, they might work. May have to put netting over the top to keep out gulls and GBHs and ospreys and .. If we kept the bait in the tank for a while, they might need to be fed too. Do any of the net boats work out of Newport for sardines or chovies or any other baitfish? Netting them in the bay might be tough unless there is a trick to it none of us has yet posted/learned. I like the idea, but the lease/rent wouldn't be cheap. It would take a bunch of us to go in and make this work. But a bunch of us do go out of Newport.

I love fishing with live bait. BTW, it would be legal to use the live bait for other species too!

ron m

[RFA Janice]

I would suggest a group of TUNA! fishermen go to the Port Commission with an overview of the problem, asking for help.

[sandman]

I'd be up for working or cash investing :grin:

[Billfisher]

Yup, me too. I'll be in So Cal over Thanksgiving, and am planning on getting contact numbers for some of the bait receiver operators down there.

[Net fun]

John,
Sounds like you have some interest here. The local ODFW crew would also be a good group to inquire info/help from. Bob Buckman might be a good start for a contact.
The ODFW up to this year has used some of the ponds to raise Chinook for the Yaquina fishery.
Net fun

[Hamachi]

Didn't vote 'cause I'd never launch out of there and it's irrevelant. I do want to say no live is a no-go for me. Those that have read my posts will know why. I'm lucky that this ex-SoCal has live available at my open water launch area of Westport. I hope you guys can pull off this off. I know the market would be there if everybody knew how good live bait fishing is.

Good luck!

[Tackle Time Bait and Charters]

John:
Most of you know that we have been in the fresh bait business for the last 20 years. I have had Skippers and deckhands that have owned anchovy bait boats. I have been on there boats myself fishing for anchovy.
Anchovy are very fragile, We ran though a thermal cline that changed the temp a degree or so with 1000 lbs. of bait on board that were in very good shape. Took a peek in the tank and all the bait was dead. We dumped it back and started fishing again.
The anchovy in Illwaco are boated in from Westport, Wa. Grays Harbor Bait has huge holding pens in seawater for there live, fresh and frozen anchovy. They are starved out for several weeks before they are ready for bait then shocked and iced for tranport to us and other bait shops.
Lotz of things to think about. Gene
P.S. I use Live Anchovy on the Lady Dee for Albacore.

[Jon55]

I used to catch live anchovies in LA harbor. All you need is to set out a light over the water. They will gather around it. Throw a net around them and keep them in a lit cage. They need light all night or they will hit the sides and die. The bait boat in LA has about 6 dories around the harbor with very powerful lights over the water. They troll their nets by the lights every night.

[Pilar]

Gene,
I used to fish Warrenton every year and Tackle Time was always the first stop as you guys had the best bait, bar none.

There is alot to learn here about these bait fish and this business but the need for this service on the central coast is pretty evident. We have everthing else in Newport but live bait. It would be the icing on the cake.

Thanks for your $0.02 .. I look forward to buying you an adult beverage and learning more.

[Gregotis98]

Count me in.

[Billfisher]

Live Herring would work fine, as well!

[Zodiac-Fisherman]

I'm thinking use of the concrete tanks would harm the bait. As markmc stated in previous threads; baitfish will swim in an circular motion, the way I'm envisioning that bait fish in those square tanks will rub themselves against the side walls, and chances are the corners won't be smooth and round. Like mark said, once bait starts dieing off, they will all die off soon.

I say our best shot is to use a mesh bait pen in a bay.

Bait is going to be hard enough to catch, we need to care for our bait as well as we can. This will be a fulltime job.

[San Anita]

:blush: John, Sorry,I was running the same type of post looking for ideas. Im sure we could get summer help for labor and Id like to do what I can to support this. After fishing with live bait in Mexican waters, Id buy live bait for every time I would go out.
In San Diego they had a dock set up with nets and you pulled up and picked your flavor of bait. Why not do the same in Newport or Depo? At first, Lease a slip and put nets in it full of bait with a screen on top. Sell it off the dock.How would you stock it? Then in the future put a floating dock in Newport Bay outside the Marina.

[Salty Walty]

It might be an idea to check with some of the Live Crab vendors. They have tanks on the docks and ones in their boats that thay keep the spiders alive.

[OceanBlue]

Hey Gene, I understand that 'chovies are fragile, but couldn't they be farm raised?

Also, it seems to me that they aren't quite *that* fragile, we took some out on Minaki and they did fine going from low 50 degree water right on up to the low 60's and back down again.

Seems to me that if gamefish (salmon) and some shellfish can be farm raised, baitfish should be too... anyone ever heard of this?

[CATCH AND EAT]

Live Herring would work fine, as well!

They will not survive the temperature transition. Herring that is.

Ilwaco's bait comes from Westport. Don't know how they transport them but they just rent some slips and net them off and then put netting over the top to keep the birds out. Works pretty slick. Might be worth your time and effort to run up and see how they have it set up. Pretty simple setup if you ask me. I would think that the holding ponds would injure the chovies more than anything else put it is a good start to an inevitable idea that live bait down there would rock.

[kamloops]

All I know is that if you put a scoop or two of bait in a tank and the bait starts trying to jump out of the tank, it's too late and your toast. Don't ask me how I know that.

Gene,


If you could get some bait pens,
I know 10-15 Hammond and Astoria boats that would love to
call Warrenton home. Kick out some of those worthless sailboats. Heck, we may even get some of our boards replaced.

[retaliate]

Sounds good John you have my support. The guy at Umpqua Bait's in Winchester net's his own locally, & keeps them in holding tanks, he catches Herring, Anchovies, & Sardine's, sometimes at the same time, they all work fine.

[tracker]

I know I would go out of Newport if there was live bait there! Would be hard for me to do bait station duty though because of my long distance commute! This has to get going! Whichever Bay gets the bait will get the business! Maybe it should be put to both Depoe and Newport concils to see if the city or ports would get involved! I can see commercial boats from Newport pulling in to Depoe to fill up on bait if it there. If they did not their business would slowly but surely migrate to Deope! The catch totals on the live bait boats will drive the business. Come on city cuoncils! Who wants the bussiness! It would be less likely that boats would travel from Depoe down to Newport to get the bait. Since normally the warm water has been off Depoe! I personally would like to see the bait at Depoe but will migrate to the bait just like anyone who wants to catch lots of tuna!

[Mr. Fisherman]

Depoe doesn't have the capacity for this venture IMHO. Unfortunately it is "the worlds smallest port"
Hopefully Newport will head the call....

[KeyWest]

I did some depth surveys on Saturday evening with someone looking to get into the live bait business in Hammond. I keep encouraging him - but with Ilwaco there - not certain of the economics....

Would be ideal to pull up to a bait boat anchored behind the south jetty!

[kamloops]

Great Idea Dean

I kind of liked your bait trawl net idea, but the floating
bait barge behind the South Jetty is the best by far.

I would support any enterprise that would keep me out of the Ilwaco Channel at 3:00am.

[CATCH AND EAT]

Tom, two words. CURB FEELERS.

[whaleraddict]

Pilar, another approach might be to contact Westport Seafoods. They are the outfit that operates Ilwaco. They have several ships that catch both herring and Anchovies and supply both Ilwaco and Westport. I have spent many hours watching them unload live bait from the ships at Ilwaco. The bait dock is about 200 feet from my floating beach house. If you could convince them that the demand is there they may be willing to give it a try. They are very good to work with and bringing their live bait ships into Newport would not be a big deal. Just a thought.

[fishtales]

I don't want to step on any toes here and I do support attempting to get live bait at Newport, however there are emense problems associated with capturing and retaining live bait.
This is only a sugestion but I would recommend talking with Bob Wilkes at Umpqua Bait before you go to far. He has the knowledge and expertise to assist or possibly even bring the desired result to Newport.
I have no idea if he would be interested in expanding into the Newport area however it is worth a phone call to see what transpires. I know Bob pretty well and would be willing to make that call if you want me to. Otherwise his number is 541-271-4511 if interested. Again please forgive if this is unwanted advise.
Respectfully AF

[fishtales]

I like Whaleraddict's idea also