On Dave McGowen's boat, the Ms. Magoo, after a hectic bite.


TUNA

Even while working, I had been fishing for tuna out of Westport WA for years, and after I hooked up with Sam, he shared in the fun as well.

This particular trip, we outdid ourselves in putting together a really motley crew. In addition to myself, Sam, and his two boys Keala and Rits, there was Ray, a buyer, and two Texans. Bruce, a high powered corporate lawyer, and Shu, a Presbyterian preacher. An unlikely bunch, would you not agree? In addition, two other guys finked out. My buddy Jurgen, who claimed his daughter was getting married in Hawaii that day, and our pal Tom, who complained that his back was out and he couldn't move. A couple of weak excuses, I think??

So we pile into my Explorer and Sam's pickup and head for Westport. Arriving, we find some good news. Our friend Capt. Dave, the best tuna skipper on the North Coast, is rarin to go, and his boat is all shipshape. As an additional bonus, we again get Capt. Dave's 15 year old son Tony, and Tony’s high school buddy as deck hands. We figured that we should get some real attention from these kids on this trip; since last year we gave Tony a big enough tip to pay his first year's college tuition.

So we set sail about 8:00 PM for an uneventful run to the fishing grounds, except Shu gets a little queasy. Three hours later we arrive and after late evening cigars, and a drink, we sack out for the night. Since we only have seven guys on a ten person boat, none has to sleep in the dreaded "filing cabinets". (So named, because they really resembled a filing cabinet drawer.)

Next morning we are up at the crack of dawn. Everyone is too excited for breakfast, so we immediately start fishing. For those of you not familiar with live bait albacore tuna fishing, the drill goes something like this. Capt. Dave decides where the fish will be and commences a medium speed troll, trailing several lines dressed with artificial squid. Eventually one or more tuna strike, then if the lay of the land (sea) looks good, Capt. Dave stops the boat and everyone gets their line out. For you technical types, we use 20 pound line with medium heavy action poles, and a #6 hook on the end. We thread a live baitfish minnow on the hook and throw him overboard. The fish swims away and eventually a tuna hits. After a sharp fight, which could last awhile, depending on the relative strengths of the fisherman and the fish, you (if you are lucky) haul the tuna aboard and repeat the process. This usually goes on for about fifteen minutes before Capt. Dave has to look for a new school

Anyhow, things were slow in the morning, but speeded up a bit in the early afternoon. 30 fish or so caught.

Then at 2:00 PM we ran into a promising school and got the lines in the water. I'll tell you then that all hell broke loose. The bite was on big time, and there were hundreds of tuna fighting for the bait. You couldn't keep your line in the water for 30 seconds without a fish, and everybody had fish on all the time. Pure pandemonium, with the deckhands untangling lines and gaffing fish like mad, and Capt. Dave running around screaming and hollering like a kid. After an hour or so of this, The Texans claimed that their arms had given out out, and they had to be physically hauled back to the rail. I tell you, that at times, we were literally up to our asses in fish.

Anyway 4 hours and 110 fish later the bite finally stopped. By this time everyone was totally pooped, so we knocked off for supper.

Compared to that experience, the rest of the trip was pretty uneventful, with a few more fish caught and pints consumed.

To sum it up, we had 156 fish weighing an average of 22 pounds each. This equated to over 3400 pounds of fish, or 490 pounds per person. (To put this in perspective, the average albacore tuna usually weighs from 12 to 16 pounds.) To top it off, Ray got the season record albacore for the port, 29 pounds 9 ounces. Which was good for a $1000 dollar prize. Capt. Dave said that in twenty years as a skipper he had never seen anything like it. The truck and Explorer were piled to the gunnels with fish and the springs groaned and complained all the way back to Everett.

Needless to say, Sam and I immediately chartered the boat for the same time next year.

Deckhand Tony with part of the catch.


MORE TUNA

And the trip next year was pretty interesting, as you will soon see. Again, we put together another improbable bunch. Myself and Sam, of course, and again Sam's two kids. Along with an old time Texas rodeo rider named Steve, and our old friend Tom, a retired bean counter. Anyway, we piled into Sam's new Ford pickup and my Explorer for the long ride to Westport and the annual tuna fishing trip.

Checking in with our good friend Marianne at Ocean Charters we immediately got two pieces of bad news.

First, some of our old fishing buddies who were going to share the boat with us had chickened out, and in their place Marianne had booked three dentists. If you recall the story about the Yellowknife trip, we had just suffered thorough eight dentists on a fishing trip, and were not at all sure that we could handle three more.

The second piece of news was even worse. The boat we had chartered, Dave’s boat, the Ms. Magoo, had blown an engine and was hors de combat. At that point we decided to take a break, think things over real seriously, and consider our options.

We started our intelligence effort in the Westport bars. The consensus of the locals was that Jim, the potential substitute skipper, was a good guy, and had some clue what he was doing, but wasn't in the same league as Dave. We had some doubts, but after a couple of beers he sounded better and better, and besides, Keala and Steve had come clear from Texas. As to the dentists, we could try to get along, but decided that Sam's suggestion to freak 'em out was probably a better solution.

So back to Marianne. We settled for the substitute boat if they would throw in our old friend Tony. Tony was delighted, of course, as he figured that the potential tips would finance another year of college. Then as we started loading our gear on the boat, we found more bad news. While we were screwing around trying to make up our minds, the dentists had grabbed all the good bunks.

We eventually got aboard, stowed our gear and gathered on the foredeck for cigars and more beer. After a couple of rounds of this, we rousted the dentists out of the saloon, and settled in to swap lies and repeat oft heard war stories during the five hour run to the fishing grounds.

At the crack of dawn we were up and at 'em, bright eyed and bushy tailed, and ready to kill every fish in the ocean. But guess what? We motored around for a long time with no bites at all. After about three hours of this, Sam finally explained to the skipper that we were on a fishing trip, not a cruise, and would he please get with the program.

Anyway, something musta happened because we started catching fish. About half of them tuna and half of them sharks. (By the way, Dave had seldom caught sharks.) This went along for some time, with the sharks being more annoyance than problem, till I managed to get my line in a half hitch around the tail of an eight footer. This got him a bit pissed, and before we could cut the line, he had destroyed my gear, as well as my finger, which had somehow got caught in the reel.

We had just about got this sorted out when the squall hit. We had noticed a kinda black cloud in the north, but had paid it little heed, till the wind got to forty knots, the seas got to twenty feet, and the boat started rocking and rolling. When the rolls reached 45 degrees, the gear started breaking loose, and pandemonium ensued. Sam’s kid got chased around the boat by an errant cooler, and Steve got nailed by another. Tom and I, both trying to keep fishing, were hanging on for dear life, while dodging a charging bait bucket. During a short break in the action, Steve allowed that this was more fun than riding Brahmas in the rodeo.

A funny thing happened to the bait at about this time. They all just kind of turned up their tails and died. Sam thought that they might of died from fright after the ugliest dentist had been peering into the bait tank, while I thought that their buddies continuously being fed to the sharks might have traumatized them. Maybe it was the storm, but in any event there they were, all floating belly up.

So here we were, getting dark, no bait, and the boat pitching and rolling enough to make any consideration of sleep impossible. On the plus side, the fish tank was almost full with about 80 fish, which equated to around 1600 pounds of tuna. Anyhow, after a short war council, we decided that discretion was the better part of valor, we had enough fish anyway, and we might as well return to port forthwith. We then did so, arriving back at two AM, and catching some sleep on the boat at the dock.

Anyway it turned out to be an OK trip. We got enough fish, some good male bonding, and as Sam said, "Three days with no women" was the best of all.

Before leaving we ended up chartering our regular boat and skipper, the Ms. Magoo and Dave, for the same time next year. After some negotiation, the group even agreed that I could bring a silk stocking friend from Palm Springs to add some couth to the party, if this could be balanced off by Steve bringing another Texan.



TUNA 2008

So, here we are, starting off on another Albacore Tuna fishing expedition.

This time we had yours truly, along with Bruce, a now retired hotshot lawyer from Texas, Bruce’s kid Clark, Dick, a big shot in the ATF from Denver, Dicks kid Tyler, Mike, husband of a shirttail relative of Glenda’s, and of course Sam and his kid Rits, along with Roy, a guy Sam had picked up at his local Starbucks to round out the team.

Anyway we all piled into two SUV’s and a pickup and headed for Westport. Upon arrival, we met Dave our skipper, renewed old acquaintances, and piled onto the boat.

Two good things happened before we even got on the boat. Dave had fired his booking agent, Ocean Charters, and we had already paid for the boat, so we were spared the usual argument between Sam, our resident accountant, and the Ocean Charters clerk, over how much each of us owed.

The other good thing was that Cowboy Bob’s, the ptomaine dump where Bruce always insisted we eat, had gone broke, so we had to settle for a much nicer and more civilized eatery. The downside, though, was that Bruce didn’t pick up the check.

Comes the appointed time for departure, we are all lounging on the aft deck drinking beer and trading lies when Capt. Dave, and his son Tony, who is our deckhand, show up, and we are ready to go. Except we are short one deckhand. But presently, this good looking young lady wheels up in a pickup, charges down the pier and leaps into the boat. We can’t figure out what’s going on till Capt. Dave announces that this is Nicole, our second deckhand.

So off we go, over the bounding main, with Capt. Dave driving, Tony and Nicole hid out somewhere, and our team drinking beer, swapping more lies and retelling oft told war stories. Finally, a few hours out, and what seemed like half way to Japan, Capt. Dave decided that this was the spot, shut her down, and we all turned in for the night.

Sleeping arrangements were in the front under the foredeck, and rivaled “The Black Hole of Calcutta” for squalor. Eight people packed together, in a space not fit for four, with the whole place completely lacking in ventilation and smelling like a combination of fish, Diesel oil, and old wrestling trunks. And to add insult to injury, if in a lower bunk, you got trampled every time the guy in the upper got up to pee.

But, having been on this boat a few times before, I slung my bag down on the bench in the saloon. Kind of narrow, but infinitely better quarters than “The Hole”. Nicole, though, by the second night, decided that anything was an improvement from the floor in the wheelhouse, and grabbed my vacant bunk, down there with the boys.

Speaking of Nicole, The deckhands, for several good reasons, tend when on the job, to be totally swaddled in rain gear, with only their noses sticking out. So when Nicole was getting ready for bed, after peeling off a few layers, I announced to the boat in general that there really was a girl under all those clothes. Which really didn’t make me a lot of points.

Next morning we were up at the crack of dawn. Everyone was too excited for breakfast, so we immediately start fishing. But the problem was that there weren’t no fish. Trolling back and forth and ‘round and ‘round, and no takers. Except an occasional retard who had skipped “school” that day, and was wandering around lost in the briny deep. This went on all day, and by dark, we had less tan 30 fish in the fish box. Of course, on the plus side, there was lots of time to swill more beer, and the sea wasn’t too rough.

I did hook one fish, which I had some difficulty getting in. The guys even started yelling at me to turn up my pacemaker, and get with the program. But when I did manage to boat him, he turned out to be a 24 pounder. The biggest fish caught for the trip.

Anyway, at dawn the next morning, it was up and at ‘em again. Dave must have finally got his electronic gadgetry to play, because we started catching fish. And had almost seventy in the hold when we called it a day and headed in. The fish, though, ran 10 to 20% heavier this year, so this somewhat made up for the lesser quantities.

In summary, if you have an iron stomach, like cigars, go for male bonding, and are into riding the mechanical bull in a Texas saloon, you might enjoy tuna fishing. Particularly if you happen to be a masochist. If not, you might want to give it a pass.