Posted by Ocean Harvester on Oct 23, 2009 in
Fishing,
General,
Ocean Harvest
Record Year Tuna Fishing on the Harvester
This was the best year ever for the Harvester Albacore fishing. We landed 4600 fish in 36 days on the ocean averaging 16lbs each for nearly 47,000 lbs. Pretty incredible for our small boat since last year we only landed 1600 fish for the whole season. What made the difference?
The Weather!
 Short Video of Jumper School |
 Video: Landing Two Albacore |
This July was the clear and calm nearly all month. It was an amazing month with very little wind so it was no problem fishing so we got a lot more days on the Ocean than we did last year and we found the tuna big time. As you get later into the season you have to change your strategy to find the tuna. In the early part of the Summer, when the tuna are moving in they follow the warm currents so you can have a pretty good idea where they will be. They’re here in the summer to put on weight so early on they’re always biting so its just a matter of finding the warm waters and trolling a pattern through it.
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Tags: albacore, commercial, fishing, jumper schools, ocean, Tuna Fishing, video
Posted by Ocean Harvester on Sep 11, 2009 in
Fishing,
General,
Ocean Harvest,
Recipes 
Diablo Roja up close thanks National Geographic
What horrors from below haunt the dreams of Captain Nemo? Diablo Rojo – the Red Devil – stalking fish, man and beast alike in and among our Oregon Coastal Waters, voracious and aggressive sometimes topping 100 lbs and 7 feet long the Humboldt Squid (Dosidicus gigas) is on summer holiday looking for a snack. They can swim up to 20 mph and use their tooth lined tentacles to grab their prey (including divers!) and gnosh on them with an impressive beak. They are called red devil because they flash red and white when attacking or getting hauled up on the boat.
Squid Washing up on Victoria Island
Once confined (more or less) to southern waters near Mexico and the Sea of Cortez these monsters have been moving north over the years following the warm waters associated with El Neno first showing up in Northern California and now more and more in Oregon and Washington waters. On the Harvester we hooked a Humboldt in 2001-2002 albacore season and brought it in to show off and nobody had ever seen one before. What was once rare is now common for us up north. Here they are washed up on the shore up in Victoria British Columbia, which even a few years ago would never have happened.
Video: Night Jigging for Humboldt Squid on The Harvester
A lot of tuna boats and sports boats jig for squid at night, but you can catch them in the day too if they are around. Most people cut them up for bait (which they do make great bait) but they’re pretty tasty too if you prepair them right.
The key to eating a Humboldt is to make sure to skin them really good — that outer membrane is really tough then cut them into strips across the grain (like you would a flank steak). Then I usually put them on skewers and marinate in sweet chili sauce (Vietnamese or or similar flavors) and grill fast and hot. Gotta cook it quick or its tough as nails and cutting against the grain helps on that front too. You could also bread with panco or batter and deep fry like Calamari. Just don’t over cook them or you’ll be eating rubber.
Eating the tentacles is hit or miss. We’ve been meaning to smoke a bunch up with teriyaki or soy sauce mix but haven’t had the time to try that out.
So if you are buying fresh tuna off the docks ask around if anyone has a fresh Humboldt and give it a shot, or maybe catch one of your own!
Keep fishing,
The Harvester Crew
Tags: humboldt squid, Tuna Fishing
Posted by Ocean Harvester on Aug 29, 2009 in
Fishing,
General,
Ocean Harvest Well its been quite a season so far. Hit and miss.. great opening but now the warm water is getting harder to find. We’ve been out of computer range for a while but now we lost the hydraulics on the last run, so time to get all the action together for a big world newspaper blog post right while the boat is getting a fix yeah? Ahem ..
A certain Captain *lost* at least 2 gigs of albacore video off the SD cards from this season. Well he’s been busy and we’re pretty sure either it got some bacon drippings on it so could well be the dog ate it or maybe baby Hannah munched it down .. we’re checking the diapers. Like Capt Tyler said ” F*ing things need to be 5″ square like the good old days” — true but the camera would also be 10 inches wide and weigh 30 lbs!!
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Posted by Ocean Harvester on Jul 14, 2009 in
Crabbing in Oregon,
General,
Ocean Harvest 
Albacore On the Line
It is time for the yearly makeover here on The Harvester, taking her from a heavy hauling machine to a sleek albacore tracking machine. We start by taking off the hauling equipment like the crab block, long line hauler and the deck table that we use for holding and setting the long line gear. Then give the boat a heavy scrubbing, paint the trim, and add the small hydraulic tuna pullers and landing table. All this takes about four days. Meanwhile in the evenings we keep a close eye on the terrafin sea surface temperature charts. They tell us where the water temperature is ideal for the albacore,between 60 and 65 degrees. Over the past couple of weeks we have seen that the warm water has moved from 100mi to 40mi off the coast of Charleston.
On the Hunt: Once we’re in the warmer waters we slow the boat to six knots and throw out nine jigs that vary from 5 to 150 feet behind the boat. They drag a few inches below the surface in the prop wash “disturbed water behind boat”. Albacore mostly travel in groups so they can corner schools of bait fish up against the surface. When they do this the surface is disturbed just like the water behind the boat. So when the harvester drives over some albacore they rise up thinking all that action means chow time. They bite the jigs swimming very fast, once hooked they dive down making the line behind the boat tight.
Video: Capt. Tyler Pulls a Beut
This is when the fun starts, we grab the line and slap it in the tuna puller that pulls the fish close to the boat then we hand pull them the last ten feet to the stern and yank them on. Once they are landed they are bled and packed in ice. Last year we averaged 90 fish per day, the first half of the season was more like 150 fish per day. As the season goes on they fatten up and don’t feed as much so they’re harder to catch, but if you want BBQ fresh tuna later season catch is the best. We can expect good albacore fishing now through the middle of October so get out the BBQ and pressure canner because it’s tuna time.
First Trip:
We left at four in the morning on Tuesday the 9th of July and fished half the day afternoon Tuesday and all day Wednsday for 330 fish at 65 miles off the coast of Winchester bay average size 15 pounds for 6000 lbs total. Weather was good and we offloaded and are heading out again. We expect to have fresh canned tuna available by this Monday.
Happy Crew is Good Crew
Second Trip:
Best albacore fishing we’ve ever had. We pulled 527 fish on Saturday the 11th of July and 180 on Sunday for more than 10,000 lbs of albacore tuna on our 34 foot boat (that’s a record) The guys at the cannery just about crapped their pants and had to hire on some more workers to finish processing (they are still cutting even now ha ha). We were 32 miles off Winchester Bay taking a chance on close in fishing. We hit the mother load and plugged our little boat. No other ships in sight the whole time sorry guys.. you were too far out!
So the canned albacore we JUST CAUGHT are available for you and your family. You can order on line and/or visit our spot at the Eugene Farmers Market Sat 18th. We are working on local pickup locations in Coos/Curry which will be ready soon — We’ll let you know. A lot of other boats have fresh albacore on the docks, just keep a look out for signs near your local harbors. We have some available but we’re on a hot streak so not sticking around on shore too long!!
Local Pickup now Available for Langlois & Coos/Curry by arraignment.
Capt Tyler and the Harvester Crew
Tags: albacore, fishing, tuna
Posted by Ocean Harvester on Jun 26, 2009 in
Crabbing in Oregon,
General,
Ocean Harvest 
The Halibut Fleet Heading Out
The 10 hour Halibut Season this year was a struggle for us on the Harvester. We stayed up the night before baiting with octopus, squid and herring. We set 30 tubs of gear (each tub with about 180 hooks) off Cape Arago with the hopes of catching 70 – 100 fish to fill our quota. Weather was great. It was blowing like crazy the day before but it was flat calm on the opening. This time of year our spot is usually pretty good since the Halibut spawn shallower in the spring and move out to deeper water later on. We’re pretty sure the halibut moved out deeper than we figured, since we know some boats who did better out there, so we basically got skunked catching only 10 fish at 230 pounds. That’s one fish an hour plus all the prep time it was pretty dire. Since you only get 10 hours you basically have make an educated (or not so educated) guess where they’ll be for those few hours when you are allowed to catch them. We guessed wrong 
Video One of the Few to hit the deck
Now its 2 days of going through the gear and fixing hooks checking the gangion, cleaning the gear really good with soap and bleach and putting it in the barn for the rest of the year. There may be other openings but its too much work for too little fish with the prices being down. We’re moving on to the Tuna which are coming closer in with the warm summer waters.
Stay Tuned for the Albacore Tuna!
-The Harvester Captain & Crew
Another Cool Video: Cabazon Fishing
Tags: 2009, cabazon, commercial, halibut, video
Posted by Ocean Harvester on Jun 1, 2009 in
General,
Ocean Harvest,
Recipes We had a few Cabazon (Scorpaenichthys marmoratus) late tonight so we filleted them kind of rough before heading home:
 cabazon have no scales! |
 just one row of pin bones |
Filleting a cabazon is a bit tricky as there are a row of pin bones running down from the upper mid head (hah .. its mostly head!), so you want to cut a full fillet from the belly up till you hit those row of bones, then skip over them for the main chunk. Then you can cut a small fillet from the remaining and pull the bones using plyers.
 mini-prep cuisinart handy for making spice rub |
 toss in bowl with garlic, rub and olive oil |
Made a rub using about 2 teaspoon Turkish Sumac, 1 teaspoon of green peppercorns and a few good pinches of kosher salt in the food processor and then dosed the fillets with some light olive oil and a clove or two of garlic & mixed them all in a bowl.
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Posted by Ocean Harvester on May 20, 2009 in
Ocean Harvest 
Pulling Traps early in the 08-09 season (link to vid)
There are many ways to a crab and you can catch a crab around here with about any kind of bait, but we don’t want to just catch any crab crawling around down there, we want to catch big legal male crab and leave the rest on the bottom.
The commercial crab season opens December first and is open till mid August. Most commercial crabbers quit before the season is over because they have other fisheries or the volume of legal male crab is less than what it takes to make a profit. This season we left our 300 traps out for for six months and managed to make them pay. In the beginning of the season there were lots of crab so they have to compete to get their share of the grub and they are just fighting each other to get in the traps and on the boat. As the season progresses they get harder to catch as there are fewer crab and more food available for them to eat and so this is when you need to dig into your bag of tricks.
Squid is the mother of all baits. I do not know of a fish or a crab that doesn’t eat squid, it is like candy to them. All commercial crabbers use it, they put it in chew bags or plastic bait jars with small holes. A chew bag is just a nylon mesh bag that holds the bait. If you are looking for a quick catch or if you are using crab rings use the squid in chew bags. When you use chew bags the crab will stay there longer because they are able to eat. It will also make more crab move in because they can see and hear their buddies chowing down. The big male crab will move in and chase away small crab that are eating something they want. The bait jars are good when using traps because it will last longer, always chop up the squid when in bait jars. When a crab gets in to find out that he can only smell the bait, it is too late.
Clams are another great bait, they have a nice sweet smell that those huge dungies can’t resist. I always use razor clams and squid in separate jars it is a great long lasting combo. Save up all of your clam trimmings and the shells too they also contain good scent.
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Tags: crab bait, Crabbing in Oregon, crabbing tips
Posted by Ocean Harvester on Apr 28, 2009 in
Ocean Harvest 
The Harvester in the Charleston boat basin
The F/V Harvester is a family owned fishing boat out of Charleston Oregon fishing for albacore tuna, rock fish, dungeness crab and salmon — when they’ll let us!
We’re going to bring you the latest fishing and crabbing tips and touch on local fishing issues, be it the salmon closure or how the crab are doing out there.
Just getting started but look for some video of crabbing and long lining and general fishing goodness from the Southern Oregon Coast.
Thanks and check back soon
-Capt Tyler & the Harvester Crew
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