An epic birthday catching Oregon tuna

This year's birthday was memorable for two reasons:
  1. I caught a lot of fish
  2. Everyone on the boat caught a lot of fish
Tuna selfie!
Like most tuna trips the day started early and ended late. In fact it was a 26 hour day with a 1:30 a.m. wake up call and a 3:30 a.m. crash in the bed. 

The opportunity to catch tuna is always questionable because the fish are often miles off shore and the weather can change quickly. This day proved advantageous for us with the forecasted winds showing up late in the day.

We started the day slowly with a couple singles caught while trolling. We would try a bait stop and jigs but we were rewarded with nothing. The third fish was a different story and while slowly reeling it in, we fished anchovies and jigs. There are few experiences as thrilling as reeling in a tuna and watching another rod get buried by another tuna. Multiply that and it is chaos with rods bouncing and people reeling in fish. 

We picked up a few more throughout the day and as quitting time grew closer, we still needed one more fish to have the total evenly divisible by the number of fisherman (a general requirement on the part of captain Don). When the reel started screening with the final fish, we felt some relief but then two more reels started screaming and we were onto a triple. We landed all three and were back to being uneven but when Kevin offered to throw a jig and go for one more, Don told Kevin he would likely go into the water with the jig.

It was a memorable day and everyone was smiling even as we cruised into Depot Bay in the dark, spent more than an hour cleaning tuna and started the three hour drive back home right at midnight.

I love fishing on my birthday. Check out the video!

Go Farther. Catch More. 

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