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While fishing out by the CR buoy yesterday, I saw two open guide boats in the 22-26 foot range with full crews of passengers. Yesterday was a marginal ocean for an open boat with 4-5 foot seas and 3 foot wind waves. Although the ocean report said the frequency was 12 seconds, it looked a lot closer to 8 seconds - it wasn't dangerous in the proper boat, just uncomfortable.
I mentioned this to a friend of mine and we talked about how every year we see lots of open guide style boats out in the ocean and he claimed that most of them don't have charter licenses (the way I understand it, you can buy a guide license and take the test, but you have to get a charter license from someone else who has one and you need a charter license to take paying clients in the ocean). My friend claims that the coastguard just doesn't enforce this rule.
I have nothing against guides or open boat owners, I'm just posting this as I know there are lots of folks here who take guided fishing trips and I'd like to see them return to port safely. I believe it's only a matter of time until we see a major tragedy with one of these open sleds getting swamped on the ocean. It might not be this summer, but maybe next summer or the summer after. Many of you will recall that we had a similar tragedy with tuna tower Ted down at Garibaldi. He was in an open sled, but his accident was not because he had an open boat - he flipped it over backwards going up a huge wave. The tragedy I think will happen is an open boat taking a wave over the bow and swamping it.
I'd strongly encourage anyone who is considering a "guided" trip to fish for silvers that they do it on a licensed charter boat and preferably a large one if fishing off the mouth of the Columbia. Yesterday was what I would consider "safe" in my boat (23' Northriver Seahawk) and we took a breaking wave over the bow in some wierd slop that would have sunk an open boat. I'm not trying to be critical of guys who have open sleds and take them in the ocean - I'm just hoping that maybe someone will think twice before getting on one of these open guide boats for an ocean trip. In addition to the danger, the people I saw out there yesterday looked pretty cold, wet, scared and miserable. Not a fun way to spend your money.
I was encouraged to see many more people wearing PFD's yesterday, perhaps because of the Taki Too incident. Let's hope and pray that we have a safe remainder of the summer.
I mentioned this to a friend of mine and we talked about how every year we see lots of open guide style boats out in the ocean and he claimed that most of them don't have charter licenses (the way I understand it, you can buy a guide license and take the test, but you have to get a charter license from someone else who has one and you need a charter license to take paying clients in the ocean). My friend claims that the coastguard just doesn't enforce this rule.
I have nothing against guides or open boat owners, I'm just posting this as I know there are lots of folks here who take guided fishing trips and I'd like to see them return to port safely. I believe it's only a matter of time until we see a major tragedy with one of these open sleds getting swamped on the ocean. It might not be this summer, but maybe next summer or the summer after. Many of you will recall that we had a similar tragedy with tuna tower Ted down at Garibaldi. He was in an open sled, but his accident was not because he had an open boat - he flipped it over backwards going up a huge wave. The tragedy I think will happen is an open boat taking a wave over the bow and swamping it.
I'd strongly encourage anyone who is considering a "guided" trip to fish for silvers that they do it on a licensed charter boat and preferably a large one if fishing off the mouth of the Columbia. Yesterday was what I would consider "safe" in my boat (23' Northriver Seahawk) and we took a breaking wave over the bow in some wierd slop that would have sunk an open boat. I'm not trying to be critical of guys who have open sleds and take them in the ocean - I'm just hoping that maybe someone will think twice before getting on one of these open guide boats for an ocean trip. In addition to the danger, the people I saw out there yesterday looked pretty cold, wet, scared and miserable. Not a fun way to spend your money.
I was encouraged to see many more people wearing PFD's yesterday, perhaps because of the Taki Too incident. Let's hope and pray that we have a safe remainder of the summer.