oregon albacore report, spearo lessons

[quattroluvr]

Friday went out for albacore. 3 of us. Lots of lessons learned as this was first blue water and first tuna spearfishing experience for 2 of us. We are so grateful for the teaching and patience of the experienced blue water spearo. We boated 5 albacore with hook and line as part of running and gunning style tuna hunting. 2 shots taken underwater by one of us but no tuna speared. I only saw one albacore for a second within the first 10 seconds, on my first dive, but had to divert to fend off a curious 4 ft blue shark. Wasn't worried about that small of a blue, but he kept approaching me about 8 times, initially I'd wave the gun in his direction and he'd back off, but then I gently poked him, and then a bit harder and he finally decided to go away. (the only shark sighting, despite chumming.) By that time, the tuna had moved on of course. I did get to shoot one later, that was on hook and line, in lieu of gaffing, but that doesn't count.

• tuna are perfectly camouflaged from above. If you see their sides it's like a flasher, if their back are towards you they disappear.
• You have to be quick into the water as soon as one hooks up on one of the rods, which means divers are constantly ready to go, masks/flippers on. As soon as a hookup hits, trollling at 9 knots, helmsman chops throttle/neutral yells go-go-go, divers throw float over the side, pay out the floatline, backroll into the water and immediately start hunting. Elapsed time should be less than 10 seconds, 5 is better.
• 120 cm is the lower limit for tuna gun, for 20 ft range. Slip-tip is kind of mandatory, to reduce chance of bent spear and prevent tear-outs.
• Best to use a breakaway rig to a float, with flotation of about 2 crab floats worth of buoyancy. Best to put a bungee section in line to the float to help prevent tear-out.
• Don't use multiple crab floats, use one hard float or a high-pressure float. two of us had a couple crab floats, which got tangled too easily with either H&L line or float line. Simply, streamlined. Vinyl better than floppy/tangly rope.
• When fussing with a speared fish, us reef hunters are used to being able to let go of the gun, since the spear is attached. But this is breakaway rig hunting, so don't just tuck the gun under one arm, put your arm through the bands! I tucked it under my arm but got so excited about handling the speared tuna the gun slipped away, though the other diver grabbed it OK.
• line management is critical, takes attention and experience to avoid tangling the H&L lines, or H&L line with float-line. more than 3 H&L lines and more than 2 divers in water at a time would likely turn into a cluster$#& tangled mess. Maybe it's a good thing the larger 6 person boat last October had to cancel.
• Only one person left in boat is a task overload but barely do-able. Since one person has to immediately reel in the empty lines and take care of the tuna rod that's hooked up, and avoid tangles... while throwing chum too! ... the best thing is to let the tuna play near the boat for a while, may attract other tuna. Then since it's really hard for one person to handle the rod and a gaff, when no diver sightings after a while, have one of the divers spear the hooked up tuna and bring it to the boat. Having a non-diver aboard could be useful for sharing topside duties.
• we left the marina 4am-ish in order to get out to the 22 mile area for the morning bite. By 10am, the bite was done, we kept trying for a couple more hours, burning more gas. Should have given up sooner to go salmon fishing in-shore, but we were too late for that bite, no salmon caught, though other boats nearby had some.
• study up on filet or other technique before you go. filet method at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC6z9qPydug
• get lots of sleep before your tuna day
• free sea temperature charts and chlorophyll charts are pretty poor compared to a high-res service, eg terrafin.com

Unfortunately with El Nino influence the water temp that tuna like was very diffuse all over the offshore waters, there really wasn't a temp break or chlorophyll (aka plankton aka water clarity) break to concentrate the tuna. Our best guess was 22 miles out from the charts, confirmed by some calls to charters from day before.
As we expected from the chlorophyll charts, the viz wasn't great by offshore standards - a very foggy 30 feet, less than 20 for decent clarity. Diving down it looked like the inside of an aqua/ligh-blue colored ping pong ball.

I'll let the other 2 divers write something if they like or not, so not naming names or boat.

Cheers,
Leigh

[Blazing07]

That sounds incredible!! Nice job!!

[shmitefire]

Oh man that sounds like a good time. I know joe Tobin has the Cali record for a speared albacore out of Monterey bay. Someday I want to jump in offshore and try for a albacore but I don't know anyone with a boat around here..

Great report I like how you listed out what you learned for next time. At least you guys got some meat and you speared an albacore (sort of) haha.

[264win]

Thanks for the great write up. There is very little info on spearing tuna in the pnw.
would love to hear from the other divers if they can be persuaded.

[juanacity]

Great work getting out there! Spearing tuna here is never going to be about bringing the most fish home, but what an adventure!

Hopefully this trip is part of an effort to build up experience among all pnw spearos for offshore fishing.

I'm sure that one of these days conditions are going to come together for a truly epic expedition. Bait stops of 30+ albies, blue fin, dorado, opah, and other exotics are all off our coast (according to stories I've heard) and we just need to find them.

[quattroluvr]

John, yah, vast amounts of the area offshore Astoria about 20-22 miles out we covered was 63.something, almost 64 degrees sea temp... before long Oregon will be considered tropical waters? it was so warm everywhere we couldn't find a temp break despite covering north to south about 25 miles or more.

[North Star]

So how do you endure sitting on the boat in full wetsuit in the sun all geared up waiting for tuna to show up, so you can jump in when they appear? You must cook. Heat exhaustion/stroke? Pour buckets of sea water over you?

Great writeup.

[quattroluvr]

That day happened to be pretty cool, in the high 50's low 60's, with plenty of wind. Hot weather would be problematic, yes. buckets maybe.
Or... just thought of this, I have a 3mm suit sans hood, and I have a neoprene beanie. You're not in the water very long, and fairly warm 63 degree water, 3mm suit with a zipper could be a lot more tolerable topside.

[quattroluvr]

hey, I finally found a west coast example video of an albacore by spear.
THAT is what we want to accomplish. http://www.spearboard.com/showthread.php?t=184447

[steepNdeep]

Sounds great - thanks for the report! Offshore is always hit & miss. That is great that you were into fish on your first attempt.

That is a similar method that we used chasin' marlin, etc. We would find the warm currents & troll hookless flashers & lures in it. Also hang flashers off of our floats & chum while we were in the water. Hunting birds are always a good bait beacon. When there's blood in the water, sharks always make it interesting...

We are salmon fishing off Van. Isle later this month, but I don't plan to bring blue water gear. Good luck & look forward to more reports.