UnWired hooks up at Newport Oregon OTC

[UnWired]

Repost from HTC's Mike Nolan aboard UnWired -

Thought I would repost this here to see Parkers in competition for the start of the 2009 Oregon Tuna Classic. Mike Nolan, Abe and our crew are insanely fun people to fish with... doing the next OTC Event in 3 weeks.
_____________________________Reposted---_____________

Hooked up with Chris and first mate Abe aboard the Unwired at the 2009 Oregon Tuna Classic at Newport, Oregon Saturday. Since inception in 2005, this is first year that Newport has fished due to prior years bar restrictions and extremely dangerous ocean conditions. This year had fog, wind waves but open bar and fish had scattered due to winds and upwelling all week.

Chris has a fully outfitted Parker 2520 that rivals any tuna chaser in its class on the Pacific Northwest IMHO. A wide load body and a get up and go Yammi complete the package. Chris has excellent command of his helm with all electronics state of the art and knowledge of how to operate to their full capacity. Abe runs a tight deck with 10 rods fished all day and no tangles except one tuna that ran outside the lines.

Friday was a pre fish and scout day for the two but rough seas and winds nixed the scouting trip. I met up with the two at takeout after my wife and I had checked into the LaQuinta Inn nearby. Another boat had taken out and had a few tuna that Chris spied and was able to get numbers. Saturday at 5am we discussed and made the call to avoid the fleet headed to tuna town at 45x125 and fished south at 44 x125.17.

Shortly after Abe deployed ten lines the first albie hit the deck after inhailing a clone behind a Fred Archer spreader bar in purple and black. Next was a double with both both corner spreader bars accounting for fish. Next strike was a mystery fish that acted like no other strike I have seen. Line went out in short bursts and than loaded up rod,reel was starting to release drag and let up and went slack.

Abe's comment was "their went our best lure onboard". We did manage 12 albies and over 100 lbs for our five largest. Winning $1000 was 120 lbs with $3000 to winners with approx 128 lbs for five largest. Exotic pool won by a yellowtail caught outside of us and 70 plus miles to port by 4pm. We had to run sixty miles back with sloppy seas and made the cutoff by 15 minutes thanks to Chris's efforts to be back on time.


Overall over 4000 lbs of albies were donated to Oregon Food Bank after being filleted by volunteers today. Awards and raffle with dinner Saturday night was a perfect ending to a day filled with sharing and chasing tuna was a fitting end perfect for first leg and first offshore Newport OTC.

Good onya Chris and Abe for sharing your ride and look forward to next chance to go Unwired.
Cheers,
Mike

 

[UnWired]

Part 2

 

[UnWired]

Part 3

 

[UnWired]

Here's where we placed, out of the 62 boats registered... we didn't do too bad for our first tourney! You might notice a few names on the event list.

Team Name Total

1.Albacore Section 126.80
2.Offshore Adventure Charter 123.85
3.Secret Island 120.10
4.Pro Sports Center 117.35
5.Keep'n it Reel 114.15
6.Rock Hard 110.50
7.Maverick's Misfits 110.30
8.Wildcat / II S Mechanical 109.20
9.Avengers 108.85
10.Just Keep Fishing 108.55
11.Ripn Lips 108.45
12.Team Tenacious 106.75
13.Bad Ass Tuna 106.70
14.Seelicious 103.20
15.Tuna Wranglers 102.80
16.Silverfish 102.25
17.Team Road Builder 102.15
18.Team Hula hoop 101.35
19.Team Reel Song 100.95
20.El Shaddai 100.85
21.RadioLabs 100.85
22.Team Weredun 100.45
23.Team Allstate/Grand Slam 100.25
24.G Loomis 99.90
25.Team Aqua Velvet 98.30
26.Nalu Charters 97.05
27.Team Holokai 96.90
28.Tuna Tales 96.35
29.Lead Head 96.10
30.Kawriders 95.10
31.Team No Quarter Given 94.03
32.Tuna Jihad 93.65
33.Team Hookers 92.20
34.No Bail 90.50
35.Ugly Boat Bouys 88.15
36.Team Surfs Up 87.85
37.Team Tuna Toy 87.65
38.Team Engage 86.80
39.Tuna Federalies 80.50
40.Knife River 78.05
41.Bad to the Bone 59.60

 

[UnWired]

FF,
Company sponsor... Team RadioLabs... boat name is, UnWired.

Wireless company, Wifi for boats.

There's 3 more events left, but we're fishing only 2 of them.

 

[TopShot25]

Chris,

Great fish report. Congrats on your success.

I've got a couple of questions on the Archer bars if you don't mind. I just got mine in the mail, two spiders and two meatballs. I will be fishing offshore down here in Socal and just wondered if you have any tips that you may have learned in the tournament. Also how did you get black and purple? They are not listed on the website, I choose green and black.

What was the best lure that you lost?

 

[UnWired]

John,

Troll a bunch of colors, whatever you have at first. Mix it up, dark and light. We have the smaller and larger meatballs.

The black and purples are available in the larger 4.25" bars, but we have 3" as well in multiple colors. Green and blacks, Chartreuse, blue red silvers, etc etc. Chase baits are good to mix up a little.

Try them short and long off the stern, when you get the first albie in the boat, knock the sucker in the head and shove your washdown hose in it's stomach to rinse some bait out. (No hate mail from PETA please) Check out what they're eating. Try to match the spreader bar size and color to what they albies are eating. (like any tuna)

I have a lot of faith in switching up bait colors, if it's overcast, use darks, and vice versa... always worked well up here, but if there is a hint of sun, they will switch to lighter colors in a second.

We are also trolling congos and singles off the deck and running 10 lines out at a time with use of the outriggers. It's good for multiple strikes. We can also place 2 Hong Kongs and 2 hand lines for 14 lines, but it becomes a cluster when we get hooked on a troll.

Another thing, carry fish traps or swimbaits with you. Once you are on a troll stop, keep the boat slightly in gear and while one person is fighting a fish, toss some traps up in front and let them sink down. It's good for multiple strikes, especially if you have some bait to toss.

Get Fred Archer's Superbar bible, lots of good info, but that's the basics.

The bad part is, we left with a school of Albies under the boat to make our 4pm weight in at Newport Or. We made it back, but it was tempting to stay and fill up the boat. Bring some live or dead bait also to try to get a boil..

We're going again Friday, hopefully we'll get some more good pictures and post a meat hunting report.

Favorite lures we lost were a $90 black and purple 4.25" and a trusty old cedar plug, that has caught more fish than I can count. It used to be black and purple, but had so many war wounds, it was mostly wood. It's was depressing when the line snapped, almost like losing grandpa off the back of the boat... ok, not really, but you know what I mean.

One last thing, now that I've written my own book, take a picture of your spread once you have everything set up using the bars. They will change how you troll. Then you can print it out and share it with new crew as far as where to drop which lines, bars, etc... like the picture below. In this case, the two inside rods are spreaders at 3rd wake, the outside line is 4th wake... 4 bars total. You have spiders, so troll those deep right off the stern.
Good luck!

 

[TopShot25]

Chris thanks for the tips. You really went out of your way here and I appreciate it. I really like the part with the picture. That’s so simple I can’t believe I haven’t thought about it before. Good luck this weekend, I too will be giving it a try. Don’t expect to find any albacore as the water has warmed up too much inside, but dorado, yellowtail and maybe some yellowfin should be in the mix. If the albacore stick around I will be after them shortly.

Thanks again, git-r-done

 

[Megabyte]

Excellent post... excellent photos.
Thanks!!

 

[B-Faithful]

Wow.. Nice trip and not shots. Thanks for sharing

 

[UnWired]

By the way John, If you ever get up to Northern California, drop me a line and we'll hook up if the weather is good and take you out to do some fishing up here if you're game.

We went again on Tuesday morning and sniffed out some water that was saying "Come fish me" and scouted around for about 15 mins, had 5 fish in the box. Another 30 mins of trolling and 3 miles later, triple.. then a double.. then slow for a while, got a quad, double and were back dropping metal bars and jigs for additional bonus buys.

Ended up the only boat 54 miles out, but 18 fish in the box at the end of the day. Gotta love scouting new territory as the satellite shots come in. Albacore are hopping up here in Northern Ca, Oregon and up into Washington state. El Nino Rocks!!

 

[TopShot25]

Chris, thanks for the consideration but I never seem to make it up that far. My buddy lives in Washington and he keeps buggin me also. He wants me to get a deer one of these days. Maybe someday.

You guys sure have it down. I was so close weekend before last. Covered a bunch of ground with lots of bait on the kelps, but no other life to speak of. Not even very many birds. I was out about 60 miles before I started metering anything decent. Even then I didn’t see any other life. Ended up back at the island for night and had to be back early the next day so my buddy could take care of some family stuff. A couple of days after I get home a buddy comes by and drops off some bluefin, way cool. Then after I tell him about my trip he tells me the sportboat his friend was on was that got the bluefin was about five, or no more then ten miles from me. I knew that water looked good. I just chickened out on the distance. Kind of like a short putt, I guess I pussed out.

Did get a good chance to see how the bars work, and learned a bunch. I did read the superbar bible and this next week I will be putting it to the test. I will be running four rods and two spiders on flat lines off each corner with 8 ounce sliders to get them down. I also made a toad to see how that works.

I’m taking my son out this weekend on an exploratory trip. I will be dialing all that stuff in as well as scouting for next week. I have my two older brothers coming to town and they want to catch a tuna for the first time. Don’t have a great bite going yet but I should be able to find a few fish. Good luck up there, I’ll post about my trip when I get back.

 

[tara11]

Wow, this is a great post, I am spying and good info, John, I did not know you had a son, how old is he ? because if he is around mt sons age, we should buddy boat or something and go far, my son is finally getting into fishing like me, so we put a new bait tank in and are going out next Sunday for 8 days at Cat, and will stay at the Ismisis, and head out everyday and fish !
Craig