July 17-Aug 10... 25 days

After salmon, me and Zac really attacked the boat and got it ready for the summer albacore season. Zac is 17 now. He is motivated to buy a new car. He does whatever it takes to get the thing done needed to perform the entire operation. Zac understands that requirement.

Wyatt at 15 is going to hang back and join up when things get more interesting. He also wants a new car. But will wait til the tuna are needing pulled in to earn it.

We departed on July 17th at 7pm. It was a blustery sea, and a very rough bar crossing. Lol!! Virtually all of our stuff in the house went flying, everything off the shelves, everything not locked down somehow. We were lucky that Wyatt had the forethought to put the little screw into the refrigerator door.

We ran all night, both kids were jacked up so I made use of that and they wheel watched while I slept soundly with faith and comfort.

7am we caught our first fish. I had gotten up at 5, slipped into my boots, peed, thought hmmmmm... set the gear. We got over a hundred fish on this day one of fishing.

Zeke on Sunset Charge called and reported the crazy high score of near 600. Way up north... so off we went for that additional 100 mile run. In the rough. Irritating. Broke rule number one. Don’t leave fish to find fish.

Spent a bunch of days with meager scores.

Day 12... . Zac had been getting up with me these past few days and joining in on the morning bite. Wyatt always sleeps in. Zac usually gets up about 7, and by then I already have a bunch of fish in the box. I like those quiet mornings, coffee, fishing, gettin... fishin... coffee... couple satellite phone calls... Zeke on the Sunset Charge and Calvin on the Julia C.

“You guys gettin??...”

Oh... “Hey Zac... ” He's coming up from below... ”Go pull those fish in... there’s some fish on back there.” I'm not real sure about that, just assuming maybe..

At 12:37 pm day 14 Zac hit the wall.

Piled up on the couch in a position usually associated with a toddler mashed into a corner of a room on a blanket. Forget about it.

Wyatt and I took over the deck. I remember feeling kind of like I better keep things really clean in order for Zac to be happy when he gets back on deck. He had so much to do with the paint and preparation of that deck that all his moves were to keep it like that. His moves. I liked them!! Better than me at it. During his absence, I was very unusual with my instant rinse of the deck on every bloody fish!

Couple hours later he came out, put on his gear and grabbed the hose and a scrubby thing and brought the deck back up to par... then pulled a bunch of fish. Wyatt was always willing as long as the fish were coming... otherwise quick to boredom and the couch or the bunk... Lol!!

Food is always plentiful!! Zac even brought a little blender, and we had a bunch of frozen fruit and yogurt for smoothies every day!

On day 25 we were fully plugged with fish and returned to Charleston for the initial offload to get over 7 tons done into Fishpatrick’s labeled cans for sale thru fishpatrick.com. Then we headed to home port of Winchester Bay for a direct sale to the public. Brian at the Sportsmen’s Cannery got a couple of tons, and 6 tons were sold at the dock sale. Super thanks to all of those friends who came to purchase our fish. We brought the last 3 tons back to Chucks Seafood's in Charleston.

During the entire trip, Zac, Wyatt, Me and Seanna had an incredible fun time. Zero conflicts. The kids both earned plenty to buy the car of their choice. In fact Wyatt already got himself a sweet low mile ride for when he turns 16 clear out in May of '23... Bought and paid for. Zac will take his time finding his second vehicle entirely purchased with his own money and he is only 17. Well deserved on both accounts and I could not be more proud of these two kids!!

Aug 27th-Sept 16th... 21 days

I head out with my dog Seanna. We are fishing for albacore tuna, trolling and catching one fish at a time. She has zero interest in the fish. Does not seem to recognize them in any way whatsoever, stepping over them to get from place to place with zero regard.

She is there for the treats. She can stand up straight as an arrow in the roughest seas as long as I got a piece of jerky, bacon, or sausage pepperoni stick in my hand. She is like Kung Fu Panda that way.

We roamed up to the border of Canada early in the trip, we got right up against it and when my partner Zeke on Sunset Charge went on up across the border into Canadian waters to finish filling up his hold, Seanna and I turned a bit south. More near shore in front of Westport Washington. Then on day 11 a weather event drove most people into harbor. My other fishing partner Calvin on the Julia C went in for a boat fix, and Seanna and I took the wind at our back and headed south for the 300 mile slide down to be near the border of California. I estimated at that time to have about 9 tons on the boat.

James Lee rides real nice with the sea at his back. Caught lots of fish on the way down! We had to turn around one day and mash against it for 10 miles, turn back with it 10, and back up again 10, and back down again 10 because the fish were biting that way, and I did not want to get too far south…Considered just drifting in the wind and giving up because the 25 to 30 knot steady hard wind and the big ass ocean breaking waves all around were intense. But the fish kept biting. And I was lazy early sleeping in and kinda hiding from it early anyways… So I felt pretty good…

The fish were piling up in the hold. The next day was nice enough to angle back in a bit from the 128 line…that’s way the heck out there! Its just where I ended up with the wind blowing.

On day 16 we hit a spot and got 295 fish. Nice ones!! But my friends 70 miles away got 600!!

So the following day I journeyed on to that area. It was 6 days since I had seen any boats at all. I wanted to join that fleet in there. Got there late in the evening, and saw my first boat in the binoculars, and the guys on the deck were going crazy pulling fish… I did not yet have very many, but still ended up with over 200 by nightfall. Processing them by cleaning each of their gills out real good and rinsing them off to put them into the fishhold kept me up late, dinner real late…Seanna keeps yelping when does she get hers etc etc…

Day 18 was a flat glassy morning on the ocean. I was a bit sore. My ass hurt. Getting up and getting socks on was difficult. But I got after it… 375 very large grade tuna today. Busy!!

I am now convinced that my goal to plug this 20 ton hold is going to become a reality. I will have participated in and finished the Iron Man Triathalon in my own little way. Brutal hard days after days of near exhaustion and pushing myself to the utmost limits. No trophy, but the payoff is large. And it’s kind of a shared thing… At the end of this event, there are about 40,000 half pound cans of tuna making about 120,000 real nice top grade sandwiches for a lot of people around the USA to enjoy… So the whole thing is not so “self oriented” at all!!

Day 20 finished us off with 178 more fish, which filled up the combing and right to the little lid on top. No hurry to get home, I stopped when it got dark and drifted in the calm sea.