Ilwaco Tuna Club president, DirtyE, along with the rest of the flag members finally pinned down some dates and events for 2016.

May 28th and 29th with be the Ilwaco Tuna Club tuna tackle garage sale.  This sale will feature rods, reels, tackle, t-shirts, etc...   If you want to pick up some tackle at really good prices, this is the place.  I will have a number of Calstar rods and Accurate reels for sale there, as well as a bunch of stuff from other members.

July 9th will be our annual Coast Guard Bar Crossing seminar along with Del Stephens tuna seminar.  This event will be held at the tuna club.  Hopefully the Coast Guard will be offering 47' Motor Lifeboat tours like they did last year.  There will be a free BBQ and a raffle with a chance to win tackle and a chartered tuna trip on Shake N Bake.  More details will be posted as the date gets closer.

DirtyE, Craiger, and the Opportunaty boys will be heading to Costa Rica in a week or so to compete in the Offshore World Championship (http://www.offshoreworldchampionship.com).

They are going to do their best to put daily updates on the Ilwaco Tuna Club webpage:  www.ilwacotunaclub.com

If it is anything like last year, fishing will be hot and the weather will be hotter.

DirtyE and I also have some BIG news regarding the 2017 season for Shake N Bake Sportfishing.

Stay tuned....

​Captain Mike

It can be tough to find tuna gear in the NW, so we headed south to San Diego to the Fred Hall Show to lay our hands on some tuna gear.

The show started at 10 not 9 like I thought, so we decided to kill some time at the horse track.  A friendly and very dedicated gambler named Larry took us on a tour and spent an hour teaching us the nuances of betting on horses.  Nils used his new knowledge to promptly lose $18.

With our horse betting careers over, we entered the show  and within 5 seconds someone came running out of the crowd and bear hugged Clark.  I guess Clark really is from San Diego, as he ran into a number of people he used to fish with.

The amount of stuff at the show was amazing.  

We spent quite a bit of time talking reels and fishing with Ben and Matt, the Accurate guys.

Nils and Clark convinced the owner of Calstar rods that we were legitimate enough to be a Calstar dealer, so there may be a Calstar dealer in Ilwaco Soon.

Clark and I made a side trip to Tijuana.  We made less than 30 feet when somebody started screaming "fucking whiteboys" at us.  We did not turn around.  Welcome to Mexico.

TJ was a ghost town.  Very, very few gringos and lots of cops.

We ran into the infamous Mexican zebras, donkeys painted with white stripes.

The police cars all had english writing on them.  Weird.

TJ was dirt cheap and no waiting anywhere, so we can't complain.

Only three more months until tuna and we can't wait.

We are already getting ready for the 2016 and 2017 tuna seasons.

Clark got to work and spooled up our 20 new Accurates and is working on getting Shake N Bake ready for tuna season.  Clark is still busy offloading crab and cleaning up on rockfish off the jetty.

We (me, Clark, John, and maybe DirtyE) are headed to the Fred Hall show in a couple of weeks to lay our hands on tuna tackle that does not exist in the NW.

DirtyE has eye on a fast 40' express that will hopefully join the Shake N Bake team in 2017.  With any luck, Shake N Bake will be the second fastest boat in our fleet.

The water at the 29 buoy on the tuna grounds is still a few degrees above normal.  I am betting on the tuna showing up in June.

I can't wait for June.

Captain Mike