Maiden Tuna Voyage

Amy Spoon's a habitat biologist for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife along with being an avid angler and hunter. She told me a story about her first tuna fishing adventure that supports what we heard earlier this week from Rob Maxey, there is a big blob of warm water off the coast of Oregon and Washington. "The week before my very first tuna fishing trip, I was out on a bottom fishing trip with a whole bunch of girls and some of the girls on that trip had plans for the following week that they were going to go out tuna fishing and invited me to go along. I was like that is great, I have never been from tuna fishing and I hear it is a blast. I really didn't know what to expect and I showed up to the dock kind of nervous because I had heard that they give you quite a fight. It was super relaxing once we got on the boat. Super nice morning with the sun coming up and it was really calm. We finally get out to the tuna grounds which is pretty far out although this year the ocean conditions are pretty warm and so the fish are a lot closer to the shore this year than they normally are. You can find them a lot closer. A lot of times you have to take a day and a half trip to get all the way out to the tuna grounds, fish and then get back but this year was different. Once we got out to to the tuna grounds, I didn't know what to expect. They were setting out the trolling gear and we were sitting there waiting and waiting. It was a really cool anticipation. It was kind of like sitting on a hillside and waiting for the deer to come out at first light."