Westport Action Video

Some video footage.

Westport Halibut

After much frustration trying to get out and fish, a weather window finally opened up. I called the gang for a possible halibut trip out of Westport and watched the forecast like a hawk. The forecast just kept improving and I made the decision that it's go time.

I don't know Westport at all, so it was a shot in the dark. All I knew was that the halibut grounds were at Grays Canyon, some 40 miles due west of Westport. It was about a 2 hour ride out in decent water - 4 foot rollers with some slight wind chop. The boat handled this water beautifully and averaged close to 10 GPH with a speed average of 18 MPH. The bra crossing was OK, a little snotty but I was never worried.

Once we got to Grays Canyon it was time to hunt. Our first drift over 545 ft was uneventful. So I moved the boat to shallower grounds. I found water that was between 475-500 ft deep. On our first pass Matt picked up his first halibut ever. We made another pass and Clint and I had a double. On our final pass we got Tim's fish. We had a boat limit and I was stoked. First blood on the boat!

Test Run

We spent a few minutes test driving the boat after it came back from Puget Marina. Motors are hummin' and everything is right in the world. I also spent some time playing with the Lowrance and looking at the NMEA 2000 engine interface that I got installed.

It provides quite a bit of information. I still have lots of calibrating to do, but the essentials like fuel management is a cool deal.

NB Trip Postponed

After watching the deteriorating water forecast, I made the call to cancel this week's trip to Neah Bay. It was hard, but it's too risky. News already broke out with lots of distressed calls coming in from boaters out there on the opening day. The Coast Guard was busy and 1 man died from falling overboard while 2 others were taken to the Forks hospital for suffering hypothermia.

I did get my boat back from Puget Marina and everything seems to be in good order with no codes from the engine. As a consolation, I'm fishing for sturgeon on Duane's boat this weekend. Hopefully, I can feel the tug of a sturgeon once again.

2008 Shrimpin' - It's a wrap

We ended our shrimping season by fishing in Matt's boat. My boat went in the shop for a fix on the motor and the 20 hour service. As expected the shrimp were less. We managed to get our limit for 3 in 4 pulls and averaging about 50 shrimp per pot. The numbers were definitely in the decline. I'm glad we got some time in on the opener and on the second day.

One interesting thing that happened today was losing Tim's number 3 shrimp pot. Their pot was tangled with ours. We were able to get their pot off, but unfortunately it sunk never to be found again. We weren't sure at what depth, but they only had 300 feet of line. With the current and big tide swing, their 15lb pot was no match. That was an eye opener for me and hope to come up with a contingency plan if that happens again. Sorry Fretz!

Mo' shrimp

We got out for more shrimping. Motoring out of the launch, I noticed the starboard side engine running slower than the port engine. I looked at my fuel management and its telling me that its burning more fuel..almost half more. I still motored out to the shrimping grounds without any incident. But this definitely had me concerned.

On the way back the engine seemed to be in synch again. As we were motoring my hips hit the key for the port engine and shut the engine down. Mental note: do not hit the key. I popped the throttle back to neutral and turn the key and fired it up.

It was a minus 4 tide and every dock and ramp on the Hood Canal were high and dry. We tie up at the moorings in Twanoh and I even got to take a little nap. The cuddy in the boat was very comfortable. Anyway, we finally got the boat out and headed home.

As I was trying to flush the motors, the starboard engine now did not fire. At the fourth try it finally fired up. Needless to say, I took the boat to Puget Marina this morning for a fix. They're also going to do the 20 hours motor service and put new oil on my oil bath hubs. Hopefully, it will be ready before Wednesday when I make my way to Neah Bay.

Bubba Gump

Well, it's the first Saturday in May. That means Shrimping opener on the Hood Canal for us. We leave the house at 5:00 and get to Twanoh State Park a little after 6 a.m. To our surprise the gates were already open and there's only 4 trucks launching. We get the boat in the water with no issues and no stress - just the way I like it!

I finally got the check out the engine probes to the engine. I didn't calibrate anything, that'll have to wait when I have more time. At least now I know what kind of fuel burn I get with the engines. We also got to test the boat at load. We had six people on the boat with 3/4 tank of fuel and all our shrimping gear. All in all the boat did pretty well and we planed quickly. Our cruising speed was at about 24 MPH at 4500 RPMS.

OK, about the shrimping. Well, as expected limits came easy. It is the opener, so there were plenty of shrimp. The new pot puller worked great and was worth the investment, as well as the McKay pots. We had almost 100 pot averages.