What's new

off shore fishing

Island rules

Well-known member
Joined
May 20, 2020
Member Number
737
Messages
124
Loc
Canaduhhh
I commercial fish albacore tuna in the summer months of the British Columbia coast. Thought I'd share the boat and some gear with you guys. Any questions please ask.

20200630_090603.jpg


20200630_092051.jpg


20200630_090411.jpg


20200630_091022.jpg
 
It was built in 79. 6v92 for a main and a 4b auxilary for all the freezing. Thanks for that. We only fish tuna so with my 9 month long off-season we keep her looking pretty
 
  • Like
Reactions: Clb
These are what we found to be the best colors and a couple of the attractors we use. Barbless hooks to get the gear back in the water as soon as possible. We ve had bites that last 4 to 6 hours and we will pull in up to 500 fish in such a short amount of time. Maximum we can freeze per day is around the 700 fish mark

20200630_114851.jpg
 
I'm pretty well versed in commercial refrigeration and the older engines as well as any system used for navigation or living needs(inverters plumbing exetra) any boat related stuff I can ussualy help with
 
Sweet! Boat looks amazingly clean, especially compared to the shrimp boats I see around here.

What’s the average size for the tuna y’all catch?
 
I'm pretty well versed in commercial refrigeration and the older engines as well as any system used for navigation or living needs(inverters plumbing exetra) any boat related stuff I can ussualy help with

I guess you have to be in the line of work your in. Calling the repair guy while at sea or having to go back to the port for a simple fix certainly wouldn't be very profitable.


I still cant get over how clean that boat is! I grew up in RI around the ocean and fishing boats. The only ones I ever saw that clean were brand new, and they didn't stay like that very long. Truly impressive.

:beer:
 
Average size is around15 lbs for albacore. They get to about 120 lbs though. So its not like the bluefin fishery. I'd almost equate it to smallmouth bass onland. They bite hot and heavy its the numbers that make us money. A full boatload is arounc 4000fish at 15lbs. But we have filled it in 1800 before. Thanks for the compliments guys. All the other boats accuse us of being yachtys lol. We normally fish in between 50 to 300 miles off shore but I have gone over the date line in this boat and been 200 miles from Dutch Harbour in Alaska 😆 we pack 4500 gallons of fuel
And can do 45 days at sea
 
Last edited:
Damn that's cool. How'd ya end up in that line of work? What are ya up to during the off season, back in the bush?
I could never handle being at sea like that, grandpa and dad made their careers at sea, I can get sick in the harbour:laughing:
 
These are what we found to be the best colors

I have a couple of those exact Mexican flags. Very effective down here in mexican waters.
Gray light I usually start off with a black/purple cedar plug or jethead & switch to the red/green/yellow after the sun comes up or they quit eating the wood.

+1 on the beautiful boat. Obviously a buttload of off season work.
PfCByNX.jpg?1.jpg
 
Yeah I've noticed that darker colors work great at first light and last light. We even tried glow in the dark stuff hours after the sun went down but its really rare to get them to bite once the light is gone. Best we have done is about an hour after dark they where still biting and we had a 100 fish circle going.

I lucked out into this job. Always wanted to be a commercial fisherman growing up. After western forest products moved their office out of Jordan River i did 7 years of timber framing and then i said fuck it. Walked the dock and this was the first boat i asked. Haven't left since. My boat owner was 65 at the time and he motivated me to get my tickets in order. Now I'm relief skipper and he's 70 but still going strong.

Off season I do a hunting trip to the queen Charlotte every year then play around on my snowmobile 😆 its nice not having to follow the rat race.
sometimes I do some lingcod or relief deckhanding on a crab boat but I really try not to haha. I got offered a boat to run to the south pacific in the winter time to fish albacore down there. Thats bassicly the end goal. The fishery is so addictive I would do this for free 😆
 
Last edited:
Yeah I've noticed that darker colors work great at first light and last light. We even tried glow in the dark stuff hours after the sun went down but its really rare to get them to bite once the light is gone. Best we have done is about an hour after dark they where still biting and we had a 100 fish circle going.

I lucked out into this job. Always wanted to be a commercial fisherman growing up. After western forest products moved their office out of Jordan River i did 7 years of timber framing and then i said fuck it. Walked the dock and this was the first boat i asked. Haven't left since. My boat owner was 65 at the time and he motivated me to get my tickets in order. Now I'm relief skipper and he's 70 but still going strong.

Off season I do a hunting trip to the queen Charlotte every year then play around on my snowmobile 😆 its nice not having to follow the rat race.
sometimes I do some lingcod or relief deckhanding on a crab boat but I really try not to haha. I got offered a boat to run to the south pacific in the winter time to fish albacore down there. Thats bassicly the end goal. The fishery is so addictive I would do this for free 😆

Good on ya man! Living in sooke or where are ya now?
 
Still in sooke for now. Looking at buying acerage up north island. Maybe thasis or zebballos or winter harbour in the fall. I missed out on a 2 bedroom 5 acres place in winter harbour last year .. was only 75k could have paid cash for it but it got scooped up while I was hunting
 
Love the boat! Kinda strange seeing a commercial boat not covered in blood, haha. I am in S.F bay area, we get albacore here usually summer months they are 25 miles out. Last year was an odd one, the temp breaks were much closer in and guys got into schools of them less than 5 miles from harbor :smokin:

But if we want tuna we run down to San Diego and hop on the party boats down there that run down into Mexico. We used to do that every year but have not made the trip since we had our son
 
We haven't but a friend of ours picked one up 200 miles of the Columbia 3 years ago. I've seen them as far up as northern Vancouver island but haven't gotten them to bite 😕
 
This is how the gear looks while fishing. We just got back with 40000 lbs for 34 days fished. 1 small bluefin and 3 yellowtail was all we got for by catch. I lost a 30lbs yellowtail right at the boat that pissed me off pretty good. Ill try to take more pictures on this next trip

20200708_090951.jpg


20200708_090942.jpg
 
Whoa, mind blown! I had no idea the tuna went North of Westport! Has it always been that way? Really cool keep up the pics!
 
yeah they have had a bc tuna fshery since the 70s. They get into southeast Alaska if the water co operates. Ive personally fished them right on the bc Alaska border above the queen Charlottes. There are a few alaskan guys who fish them as well. Our simple fix is taking a little longer than first thought. Might head out tomorrow or next day
 
Those fish look whole, are they not gutted before being frozen?

Do you mind showing pics of your bait rigging? I fish the Gulf of Mexico (mostly), recreational style. We go to great lengths to make everything small and invisible, I know commercial operations don't always worry about that. What will an albacore really eat? I've seen snapper eat bare hooks on the surface in 200+ feet of water.
 
Albacore during a bite will eat anything that splashes bare hooks, barbie dolls, sticks tied together. Anything goes. Colour doesn't matter when they go on a frenzied feed. Its those times that they are not biting very well that makes the difference between an OK fisherman and a great albacore guy. Getting them to bite your fear when they are at 30 to 40 fathoms at the surface is a hell of a task.. i can't give a way the whole secrets but guys try anything from throwing the leftover rice overboard to imitate bait fish too shredding up garbage bags of tinfoil to attract them up.
you are correct all we do is bleed and freeze the fish. The left overs gets turned into cat food or crab bait at the plant.
We just use 1 colour of zukers the key is to not have the odd one out. Or an ugly duckling out there because they will always target the injured or weak bait. Main line is 300 lbs purlon and from the splashers to the hook is 220lbs test. Even though they have great vision they are such frenzied feeders they don't care.
I'm just running in to drop of load number 4 and that is it, a wrap for the year. Ill take pictures of the rigging when I store it away. I need a nap. Haha been running from another october storm of the heck seamounts about 180 miles of shore this time.
 
I'm bad at remembering to take pictures. The sun has set on 2020 season for us though. 110000 lbs this year about 20 percent more than last year but the price was fown from 2 .75 to 2 bucks this year... enough to keep the boat working next year though.

20200928_194026.jpg


20200817_172605.jpg


20200814_205733.jpg
 
https://www.cheknews.ca/arctic-fox-...e-survivor-of-deadly-fishing-incident-691421/
I was on scene when they retrieved the Captain and other crewman. First boat i ever fished beside. He was a great guy.we heard the mayday call and were 4 hours away. Longest 4 hours I ever spent on a boat. Was not nice out but nothing that should have sank a boat. Only 25 knots and 4 meter seas. Tragic. Rip captain.

Was wondering about you when that was on the news. Any word on what caused it? All kinds of conjecture in the comments on news stories of course.
 
Well it was an old wood boat. The distress call was second long. This is the arctic fox. We are abandoning the ship. The bow remained above water till we arrived on scene but the 2 unlucky ones were being pulled from the water. Im guessing that the liferaft blew away while hey were trying to board it. They had their survival suits on when they got retrieved by the helicopter.
my thougt is a through hull let go or a plank popped.
 
Damn fine way to make a living in my book. Thank you fro sharing some pics of your gear, I halfway expected you to say its top secret and not. I figured you were using a lot larger gear than we do fishing recreational style. I am going to carry a bag of rice with me just to test that, I bet that would send our Ling into a frenzy when they have a case of lockjaw. I keep wanting to add a grinder to the boat but its damn messy and we usually get our limit anyway.

Well done Captian.
 
fish are biting a bit today. 100f by 11am ill take it. in and out of service ill try to update as my service permits.
 

Attachments

  • 20220820_105749.jpg
    20220820_105749.jpg
    1.5 MB · Views: 36
  • 20220820_105745.jpg
    20220820_105745.jpg
    1.7 MB · Views: 36
Top Back Refresh