ODFW Rockfish Tagging Trips

Wayde’s comments:

Friday, April 24th, I went on a rock fish tagging trip with ODF&W. We were on the charter vessel Misty with Captain Robert (Robbie) Waddel. Left the dock at 0700 and proceeded under the bridge, down the bay to the jetty tips then south to an area 2 miles west of Waldport. The ocean was calm with mild swells. Fishing was good. I caught 35 bottom fish with 25 of them being black rock fish which were tagged and released like the rest. The anglers do not keep any fish on these tagging trips. I also caught lingcod, Cabazon, quill back, yellow eye, brownie, china and a sea trout. The wind came up in the afternoon and some wind chop made the boat rock more but not too bad. The trip produced 287 tagged black rockfish which is the best day so far this year. We were back to the dock at 3 PM.

Nicole’s comments:

(April 29th) So I'm just sitting down finally to write this email. If it's leaning a little or misspelled it's because I'm still swaying from being on the boat...
I had a great time! It turned out to be a beautiful day, no rain after 7:15 this morning. Fishing was very slow at the begining and the last two hours but very busy in between. We all caught 241 fish plus 2 pretagged fish. There were plenty of yellowfin (?), Blue fin ?, a couple of cabazon--no clue how to spell that, and ling cod. Walter even caught a small sculpin--ugly thing. We were pleasantly surprised with a whale cruising by about 100 yards from us. We also saw 3 others, tails and all. Mike ? caught the longest fish at 51cm. I had one on that was at least 60cm, but it got away...
Here's the report and I hope you have a successful day tomorrow Lee (if you read this after you get home, send me a report on how your day went).
i hope I can sleep tonight and not dream about being on a boat--I think this couch is rocking back and forth...
--- i o e
N c l


Wayde’s comments:

(April 30th)

Nicole
My report for today. Good day and fun. The group said they enjoyed fishing with you yesterday and hope you go again.


Lee Fries and I went on another rockfish tagging trip with ODF&W. Very nice day on the water. Little wind and low swells. We fished down by Waldport till 1 PM. Came in 2 hours early because we filled the quota for the area we were fishing. The group caught and tagged about 260 black rockfish. 40 to 50 other species of fish were caught but not retained. We each caught 20 or more rockfish today.
An exceptional event happened around noon. Counting the boat crew we had 14 people fishing and caught 100 fish in 10 minutes. I want to tell you, that was wild. Most were catching 2 or 3 at a time. The tagging program has an annual target of 3000 tagged fish. After today 2225 have been tagged so far this season. The goal may be raised but that is not certain yet.