Fishing has always been something I’ve enjoyed, especially once I did off shore fishing on that first charter trip.  I wanted to go again and since my buddy was heading out I decided to catch up.  I called Tradewinds out of Depoe Bay, Oregon the night before and left a message asking if there was room on the boat.  Dark and early the next morning I left for the coast in the hopes of them having room for one more on the charter fishing boat.

Normally it takes about an hour and twenty minutes to get there and I’d allowed an extra 30 just to be safe; turned out that I should have left much earlier.  Some company was in the process of moving several large pieces of equipment via semi truck all doing half the speed limit on the extremely winding single lane road, passing lanes are few and far between.    Knowing the boat leaves at 7 AM I was getting very nervous and thought maybe I was just going to have a frustrating trip to the coast.  I pulled into Lincoln City about 6:50 AM and Depoe Bay was going to take another ten to fifteen minutes to reach.  I called Tradewinds and asked if there was room and told them were I was.  The very nice gal on the phone said yes to the room and it was good I called as she was just going to tell the captain to go but…she’d hold the boat for me!

I sprinted from the parking lot, paid and hurried down the miles of stairs to the boat.  Got a bit of good natured ribbing for being the last to board and off we went.  Looked around for Bill but didn’t see him so I settled down for the ride.  Depoe Bay is the smallest bay in the world (I do believe) and it was only a blink before we were heading over the bar.

It didn’t take long and we were fishing for bottom fish, I was hoping to catch a ling cod.  I had trouble immediately with my reel, it didn’t want to let the line drop and once I’d gotten down, it didn’t want to reel back up.  I caught my first fish and the stupid reel nearly fell apart, I literally had to put the handle back on.  I told the deck hand but he blew me off and ran to help another with a fish on.  I continued to be problem child when I hooked the bottom and lost my tackle.  I followed the deck hand for new tackle and while waiting I hear, “What, too good to talk with me?” Looked up to find Bill on the opposite side of the boat from me!  We laughed and I moved my tub of fish by him and dropped my line.

The next fish on for me was a pretty good sized black sea bass and again the reel gave me trouble.  I commented to Bill and lucky for me the captain was nearby, he took my pole and brought me one with a decent reel.  I limited on sea bass but the elusive ling cod wasn’t mine that day.  We did have a man aboard that seemed to have the Midas touch for them.  He pulled several and kept two really nice sized ones.  Bill went forward to ask what he was fishing with as he’d brought his own gear.  I’m sure there’s a name for what he was using but I don’t know it.  It looked like a slender tapered lead fishing weight about 3 inches long with a couple of hooks on the end.  He was pulling ling cod like no one’s business!  As this was also a crabbing trip, we pulled the pots on the way back.  I didn’t sign up for crab and wished I had as they were pulling lots of them.

It was sad not to hook a ling but I did get to see two porpoise while out and on the way back in about 100 feet from us was a whale.  I’ve never seen one in the ocean before so that was a definite high for me!  I sat inside on the way back and chatted with some of the guys.  As we approached the bar I turned to watch how we came over the bar.  I was a bit alarmed when I noticed the navigation markers weren’t lined up but reminded myself that the captain does this daily.  The rocks are huge there and not very far under water.  The entry seems to be a zig and a zag and I never want to cross that bar while I’m at the helm!

I like the set up for fish cleaning and crab cooking/cleaning.  I definitely like how they did the crab there.  Clean first and then cook…yep much better taste.  Sadly, the deck hand didn’t count correctly and they had more crab left over at the end of folks crabbing.  I think everyone could have limited out had the deck hand’s math been better.

I don’t care for the stairs.  There are tons of them and with a buddy who’s elderly with health issues it was a bit scary.  Seems he came aboard the boat from the back parking lot where there are no stairs with the promise of being returned there, which didn’t happen.  So if you’ve any sort of health problems I wouldn’t recommend Tradewinds Depoe Bay, Oregon.