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Interesting recent Washington commercial catches

87K views 969 replies 47 participants last post by  Meanwhile 
#1 · (Edited)
While Mako shark are the only one of these species that have realistic value as a fly fishing target, I still find it fascinating what can be found off our coast. From another saltwater forum:
There's been a lot of excitement the last month or so with my son giving me abundant reports of exotic fish that are regulars of the So. Cal commercial fleet. Just to give you an idea of the volume that exists off of our coast here are a few of the stats: in 2, 10 day trips in October, he landed over 100 Swordfish (from 100-600lbs), an equal amount of Mako and Thresher Sharks, and a smattering of Imperial Louvar and Opah.

The fishing is focused in the hottest strips of water from La Push to Garibaldi and from 125.00 -126.25 West. The outer garbage dump was very hot one trip.
After reading this I am now 100% sure that we saw a small Mako shark when tuna fishing this year, and I will be prepared if the opportunity presents itself again next year. Swordfish, while arguably the greatest gamefish that swims, seem a very unlikely fly rod target in the PNW due to the depths they frequent. Not sure if Thresher can be taken on fly gear but are well regarded as a sport fish. Imperial Louvar also being a deep water fish, seem an even more unlikely fly target than Opah but definitely add to the mystique of what can be caught offshore in the PNW.

Louvar can reach 300lbs:


Anyway, thought some of you salt junkies might find this interesting.
 
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#606 · (Edited)
Took a week off from tuna fishing to make an unplanned trip to Arizona for a family situation and was really hoping to hear fishing had improved when I returned. It has not. Fished hard all day yesterday for five tuna. Today was worse. Only came back with one. Plus it was rough as hell so we just had our ass kicked all day. First time clients have called it quits early. I wasn't heart broken.

Worst part is that last week while it was slow for tuna, our boats landed two makos! And I missed it! The captain I usually work with says he thinks he hooked two as well. Hooked two fish on the troll that both spooled them before he could even turn the boat. Said he's sure they were makos as well.

Just my luck to miss out on all the action.

Also, in regards to the comparison to salmon fishing, it's really apples to oranges in most regards. Where it is similar, IMO, is the way we look for fish offshore. With the exception of using temp and temp breaks instead of rips, looking for fish on the tuna ground differs little from looking for coho in the ocean. Beyond that they are very different fisheries.

Water Smile Sky Sunglasses Goggles
 
#608 · (Edited)
Things may be looking up for tuners (finally). The warm (17C) water is creeping back in and nearing the 125 line. Hopefully it's building to a sharp 17-14C break within 30 miles. What I'd really like to see though, is that ridge of 18C water way off to the SW connect with the growing blob of 18C just outside the 126 line. Fingers crossed.

Rectangle Map Font Slope Parallel


EDIT: And here's the daily updated SST shot for comparison to the 8/13 image above. It's getting there :) .

 
#621 ·
Pelagic fish do not make great catch and release candidates especially with hauling into boat for pics etc. To me it's more sporting to kill what you can use and then try top water or something difficult if you need to catch more fish than CnR a bunch on bait or some easy method.

Better to kill juveniles than big breeders IMHO unless there's some science to say otherwise.. Pacific mako population is apparently stable from link below so killing a few probably won't hurt population. www.iucnredlist.org/details/39341/0
 
#623 ·
I know of a small handful of makos caught up here this year and without question they were not killed for bragging rights, they were killed for their reputation of being delicious. Just as most everything else that gets killed out there.

I have seen people treat blues pretty poorly, and I agree that there is no need for that.

People just get so focused on plugging the boat as quickly as possible that anything less is a let down. Because of this focus it seems many folks miss out on all the awesome things that come with being that far off shore. It's weird to be in the middle of a fishery where hooking 20 large, hard fighting fish in a day is considered slow
 
#626 ·
I don't think they are really in the same realm personally.

That being said I don't know if I'd kill a mako. I have a healthy respect for sharks...even if Blue's are about the worst fighting fish I've ever encountered. Pretty sure a 10 lb carp fights better. Lol


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#627 ·
I don't think they are really in the same realm personally.

That being said I don't know if I'd kill a mako. I have a healthy respect for sharks...even if Blue's are about the worst fighting fish I've ever encountered. Pretty sure a 10 lb carp fights better. Lol

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Hey carp are good fighters. :) Mako is an awesome apex predator, permit is just a jack that eats crabs so ya not same realm :) Permit is one of highest dollar table fish in FL. It's phenomenal. I'd let one go I caught on fly on a flat because that's fitting but one caught in deep water would meet with blackening spice and cast iron..

I try to respect every fish equally including bait, as I don't think karma cares how big the creature was or who thinks it's a special sportfish. That's why I'm a very rare live baiter and it has to be for table fare.
 
#628 ·
I've caught a lot of carp...just not in recent years as I haven't devoted any time to them.

Everyone has their own moral views as to what is acceptable...as long as it's not going to waste and the species isn't in peril...I don't have an issue with it for the most part.

This is a common thread for bass fisherman too...some love to eat it...others are strictly C&R. They both have their merit's based on the fishery and the state of it.
 
#629 ·
I fished Tuna Sunday out of Westport and there was a good morning and afternoon bite at the lip of guide canyon 34 miles or so SW of port. We tried something different this trip. My buddy brought some troll gear and cedar plugs so we set up 2 fly rods w/ flies and a gear rod with a plug and every troll fish came on the purple plug. I had about 10 trays of herring left over from my annual gear trip to Nootka which I brined up and I was able to get 2 bait stops going with dead bait. So it can be done. Didn't have any luck casting flies to the fish around the boat though. Also, we got our last troll fish in about 600 ft of water while trolling back towards port. So the fish aren't very far.

Nick - do you know what all those commercial boats were fishing for? There were at least a dozen boats fishing in 600 ft of water. That seemed too shallow for ideal Tuna fishing and too deep for fishing highway Salmon.
 
#630 · (Edited)
I fished Tuna Sunday out of Westport and there was a good morning and afternoon bite at the lip of guide canyon 34 miles or so SW of port. We tried something different this trip. My buddy brought some troll gear and cedar plugs so we set up 2 fly rods w/ flies and a gear rod with a plug and every troll fish came on the purple plug. I had about 10 trays of herring left over from my annual gear trip to Nootka which I brined up and I was able to get 2 bait stops going with dead bait. So it can be done. Didn't have any luck casting flies to the fish around the boat though. Also, we got our last troll fish in about 600 ft of water while trolling back towards port. So the fish aren't very far.

Nick - do you know what all those commercial boats were fishing for? There were at least a dozen boats fishing in 600 ft of water. That seemed too shallow for ideal Tuna fishing and too deep for fishing highway Salmon.
Great job! Converting troll hookups to a dead bait stop is a bit more challenging but it can be done. It's pretty much SOP among the sport fleet on boats with no live bait capacity. The difference is that tuna don't like to come to the surface for dead chum like they will for live. While nothing beats live bait or chum, the important thing is that the school is still keyed on the boat and the chum trail. They're just hanging out anywhere from 30' to 60' or more down. Once the school is under the boat that's generally when the jig rods come out. Swimbaits, (rubber fish on a weighted jig head) are also effective if the fish aren't super deep as are dead baits on a weighted line.

Fortunately, tuna selectively keyed on dead chum will absolutely eat flies. You just need to get it down to them (basically the recurrent theme through this thread). If you don't want to read through 42 pages of posts (who would), it boils down to using a heavy sinking line on the order of 600 grains or more.

The technique is simple and extremely effective. Simply cast, stack mend the crap out of it, and let the line straighten out on the drift. Then start retrieving until you think the fly is too shallow, then roll cast and stack mend the retrieved line to repeat the cycle. You're looking for a line angle that will get you into the strike zone while your still on your running line. Obviously this will be dependent on drift rate but roughly 45 degrees down seems optimal in my experience, which also makes it easy to estimate approximate depth. At 45 down (assuming if the line was perfectly straight) your depth would be 0.7X the length of the line out (or the line out is 1.4X depth). Throw in a slight correction factor to account for line curvature and things simplify a bit to 2/3rds or 1.5X. Probably not super accurate but if you're consistent in how you estimate you'll eventually find the right depth and know when you're there.

The bottom line is that you don't have to troll or use live chum to hook them on flies.
 
#631 ·
Here's the report for yesterday (8/29).

Short version:

We got our asses kicked, with only two brief hookups on the troll.

Long version:

It was too effing rough to do anything but troll, but we had a great crew and have zero regrets for lack of effort. Capt Randy slugged it out burning almost 150 gallons to cover a lot of water. We ran WSW past the 125 line trolled north to the south rim of the Astoria Canyon then straight into the slop back towards Garibaldi before finally calling it and reeling in about 30 miles out.

Even if we had mass quantities of live chum it would have likely been useless since the drift rate wasn't much slower than trolling speed. The good news is that there was very clear, blue water within normal range which will likely get closer with the southerly wind. We just had too much of it yesterday. Out of all the days I've fished tuna (more than I can count) I'd rate the conditions as the 2nd or 3rd worse I've been in. The water is definitely warm enough too at 66F. Tuna are out there but are either staying deep or are scattered. Unfortunately, finding them in those conditions is very tough. Even if both our troll hooked fish had stayed on, it's very unlikely we could have converted a bait stop with that drift rate. I did get to hear the Tibor sing for a few seconds though. Hopefully a little tease for this Saturday's trip.

The cool moment of the day was seeing a whale fully breach. Presumably a humpback since we saw several others including one only 100 yards or so away.
 
#634 ·
It was too effing rough to do anything but troll, but we had a great crew and have zero regrets for lack of effort. Capt Randy slugged it out burning almost 150 gallons to cover a lot of water. We ran WSW past the 125 line trolled north to the south rim of the Astoria Canyon then straight into the slop back towards Garibaldi before finally calling it and reeling in about 30 miles out.
Ouch. I had the chance to jump on someone else's boat Monday out of Ilwaco and I declined. Glad I did. I put 10.5 hours on my boat Sunday and burned less than 30 gl but I only had one other guy on the boat and about 50lbs of ice and never ran past 36/46.

I can't imagine hooking into a 100# blue/yellow fin tuna on a 12wt. I would think it would be very hard to land a fish like that without chasing it down and if he went deep, good luck. I'll never forget how difficult it was for my buddy a couple years ago that hooked into an average sized albacore with his 10wt. He fought that fish for 45 minutes before we finally landed it but he was unable to fish after that. Heck a 50# tuna would be brutal on a 12 wt.

I too don't like seeing those mako's killed. There's no way I'd kill one, but I've released (intentionally) as many albacore as I've killed. Frankly, I don't see the point after you have a couple fish in the box per guy. I read a recent report of a charter coming in with 70+ tuna Sunday out of Ilwaco. That seems excessive to me, regardless of the stock's heath assessment.
 
#632 ·
Our best bait stop came when there was a fairly strong current. I had salted the bait well and they were sinking pretty quickly, but we also had a bunch of birds around the boat and were doing something I've never seen before. They were grabbing the flylined bait line and lifting it up about 10 feet, and in so doing pulling the bait up to the surface where they could fly down and grab it. We almost hooked a few gulls that way. I have to admit it was a pretty impressive display of intelligence from a sea gull. So we had to add some weight to the bait lines. I had a heavy sink line on my 12 weight, but it just wasn't getting down to the fish in the current.
 
#636 ·
I always bring my big salmon net when albacore fishing. Some of the trips I've done, I've released all the tuna I've hooked because I don't really care for seafood and just didn't want to deal with cleaning up the boat or carking the fish. We actually released that Tuna that my buddy fought for 45 minutes as he was visiting for a week from out of state and wasn't taking any fish home. I've never had an albacore look like it wasn't going to survive after it was released, but you do have to be careful with their mouths as they can be fairly easily damaged removing hooks or in the netting. I'm at the point now where I'm thinking about about using a net for all my tuna to avoid the mess.
 
#637 ·
I like to net albacore, they will not avoid the hoop as a salmon will, tuna swim into it without much fuss.

I wish we could have done that on Monday. A goose egg trip with wind waves kicking my butt was not what I expected. Only one hit and it came off.

Meanwhile is a 30' Grady White
Hail out of Garibaldi on 14
 
#641 ·
I've not yet tried it, and I was not looking to loose a lead ball in that wind chop. I have thought about dropping something down. I have used a 32oz Old Salty planner to run some lures, it turned out to be more trouble. But when nothing else works to find tuna I think it might be a hail Mary play to bring up a school.

Meanwhile is a 30' Grady White w/twin 250's.
Hail Meanwhile on 14 out of Garibaldi
 
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