Cascadia Big Fishing Year Hits the Mark on the Olympic Peninsula

I did it! I set out to catch/harvest 50 species of fish/shellfish in WA/OR this year and on a recent trip to the Olympic Peninsula I did it. Even better is that my 50th species came from on the kayak which has been my primary watercraft during this adventure.

On this most recent trip my wife and I camped at Ft. Flagler and worked over the local public tidelands where I racked up numerous clam species for the year. I also spent a few hours trolling from the kayak at Lake Crescent where I managed to hook and land a couple of the endemic Beardslee Cutthroat Trout trolling a small copper spinner.



Species #50 was Spot Prawn which I got from the kayak in Sequim Bay. I dropped the pot in 130' of water and after two days of digging limits of gapers out of the sand and gravel all I could muster is a single pull before my muscles gave out.



In all I added 12 species on this trip which takes the count to 53 species. Besides hitting the 50 species mark a major highlight of this trip was getting my first geoduck. This species had evaded us last year and we were determined to get one this year. I lucked upon a really large one which took us almost 45 minutes to dig out. It was certainly a team effort.



Now the march towards 60 species begins! Here is a collage of the 53 species I have so far. Who knows where it will end.

Nice job, Tyler! Its been fun following your year on NWKA and also on Ifish...great pics....cool stories. Continued success to you.....

Congrats on hitting 50.  What are you going to do with the 5.5 months left in the year?

Congrats on hitting 50.  What are you going to do with the 5.5 months left in the year?

Going to keep on keepin on. Hoping to get as many species as possible.

Awesome job Tyler!  I'm looking forward to seeing how many species you can add to your 1 year total.

-Spot-

Congratulations on meeting your goal. You're about 44 species ahead of me this year!

Best geoduck video ever 

This has been an absolute blast to follow - and sometimes participate in.

What's next year's goal? 50 species via noodling?

That was a great video!

Awesome job man. The video was great and I really loved that collage that you put together. What a fun idea.

This is so awesome! Hilarious video!  Great teamwork there. I nominate you guys for fishing couple of the year.

I've been watching the Cascadia Big Year with interest since the beginning of the year and I think it's pretty awesome that you hit your goal barely half way through the year! CONGRATS! Maybe there have been similar undertakings in the past but I haven't heard of any, and your pictures and videos are an awesome way to communicate what you're doing to people.

I see some species not on your lists yet that I'm sure you'll "net" before the end of the year depending on your priorities. I wouldn't be surprised to see you at 70 before it's all said and done. Keep up the awesome work!

Nice work! Now that's a clam or bi-valve or whatever they classify it as

Congrats on meeting your goal!  What a cool concept/approach to a full year of fishing - and the documentation/story-telling has been fun to follow along.

Keep on going...

-Sam

That's awesome.  Onward to 100!

-Allen

That's awesome.  Onward to 100!

-Allen

+1 We want more porn!!!!