MONTANA DAN
Tuna Time by Dan Helterline
Last month I mentioned I was going on a tuna fishing trip with my brother Nick on my 50th birthday . Well I ' m officially half a century old and I got another trip checked off my bucket list . I have wanted to go on a Albacore Tuna trip off the Washington coast for quite some time but working as a smokejumper and spending my summers on fires doesn ' t exactly lend itself to fishing trips in July and August , especially ones that require a time commitment and a non-refundable deposit to reserve the trip . For many years I would listen to several retired smokejumpers tell me about the tuna trips they would take out of Westport Washington every other year and the coolers of Albacore Tuna fillets they would always bring home . I promised myself that this would be one of the first trips I would take once I joined the ranks of the retired and had my summers to do as I pleased and not what Uncle Sam dictated .
That long awaited summer has finally arrived and I kept my promise to myself to make the trip to Westport and try my hand at Albacore fishing . The retired smokejumpers that I spoke of earlier always booked with the same boat and captain every time they went and for good reason , Dave Gowan has been fishing out of Westport for over 35 years and his 50 foot boat the Ms Magoo is arguably one of the most successful boats in the Westport fleet , so successful in fact it difficult to book a spot . When I checked his website in January there was only a couple of openings , two of which fell on my birthday . I made two quick phone calls , the first to Ms Magoo ' s office to secure the last two openings on July 18 and the second to call my brother and tell him we were going tuna fishing !
July finally rolled around and I started to get excited about this long awaited trip , the morning of my first day being fifty , my truck was loaded with coolers , and I was headed to Westport and meet my brother . We had booked a two day trip , so we were supposed to leave the marina in the evening after loading up on the boat , we would then motor most of the night and arrive at the tuna grounds by morning . We had a full day and half of the second day to fish before returning to the docks in Westport . I meet up with Nick a couple of hours before our scheduled departure time and had dinner and a few birthday beers before loading up and leaving the harbor that evening . Over half of the ten fisherman on board had fished on the Ms Magoo previously with several of them having multiple trips under their belt , so on the way out to the tuna grounds I had ample time to quiz these veterans what to expect when we got into the Albacore in the morning . We motored until about 1:00 am then the captain killed the diesel engines for the night , those of us still up settled into our bunks and tried to get a couple hours of sleep . The Eastern horizon was just starting to show a hint of light and the two deck hands were up starting the coffee pot and preparing the gear as Dave started the engines . We had only trolled what seemed like a short distance when the clicker on one of the reels started singing announcing we were into our first school of Albacore !
Our routine was we would troll with four rods out the back until a tuna hit one of the lures indicating we had located a school . One person would start fighting the freshly hooked tuna while the rest of the fisherman grabbed rods and hooked on live bait from the tank at the back of boat . With the boat out of gear everyone would let their lively hooked bait over the rail on the upwind side of the boat , you tried to get the liveliest possible out of the tank . A good bait would pull line off your reel while it was in free spool and it wasn ' t long before your line would start to accelerate off your reel indicating that a tuna had just grabbed your bait and was headed for Japan . It was then just a matter of pushing the lever drag forward to engage the reel and begin your battle . Continued on page 12 .
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