Rogue Waves

[huntnphool]

A few years ago my wife and I were up at Neah Bay in September trolling tube flies behind the boat with our fly rods, a kick if you have never tried it. The morning was beautiful, not a cloud in the sky and not a bit of breaze making the water like glass. Trolling along the rips we were just nailing the silvers, our tube flies were just under the surface with our sinking lines and the fish would come right out of the water when they would take them. Trolling along having a great time and I see something way off in the distance. Not sure what it was I kept my eye on it and it appeared to be getting closer, although still a long ways off. I kept watching and not only was it getting closer it was getting bigger, stretching for miles. We were around Tatoosh so getting that uneasy feeling I headed back in the direction of Neah Bay. We continued to troll our way back and it finally became clear to me what it was, I should have brought my binos Realizing too late, and now its only a mile or so away, I had to decide what to do. I quickly put the top up on the boat, thank god I had it, with just a minute to spare and turned the boat into it. About that time it hit us like a ton of bricks, the windshield looked like an aquarium and the top deverted all the water over us to the back, kicking on the bilge pumps. It continued on its course and then it was gone. The water was once again like glass and we sat there looking in all directions wondering what the hell just happened and caused this rogue wave to appear out of nowhere To this day it scares the crap out of me when I think back on it and I still have no idea what happened

[WAcoueshunter]

Whoa, good thing you were paying attention...that wouldn't have been good to take that over the stern.

Heard about another one up there earlier this year.  Here's a thread about a guy who lost his boat at Snow Creek.

http://www.piscatorialpursuits.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/434806/2

[DeKuma]

Happened to us a few years ago in Neah bay.  MAybe same wave.  Water like glass, fish hitting like crazy and out of nowhere there is this huge wave!  Luckily we saw it soon enough to turn into it and powered into it.  Hard top Custom Weld Storm looked like a submarine for a minute!  Scared the crap out of us, but instilled a bit of confidence in the boat.

[tmike]

That's scary. Rule #1 Never turn your back on the ocean. Sometimes it doesn't matter. I took an 18 footer (est.) that was breaking over the stern in Cook Inlet. The fish I had on deck plugged the scuppers so I was up to my thigh in water. Luckily I got them cleared and it drained of before another one came over. I'll never forget that moment.

[huntnphool]

I hear ya, its a good thing we have a solid boat too or it might not have been so good. Makes me shudder thinking what would have happened if I hadnt put the top on the back of the boat when we headed out there, even though it was a bluebird day. My boat top is not a hard top like yours, its canvas.

[cohoho]

A little Tsunami....  They can happen anyhere especially with all the seismic activity in AK and out on the peninsula. Bad things they can be for certain...  History, in 1964 the big earthquake that hit Anchorage and Seward more people died in WA and Oregon from the Tsunami it created than in AK.

[snipekillr]

thats really wierd
 

[PolarBear]

I've had the same thing happen at Tatoosh.  I was in my 18' workboat when we had a 16' rogue hit us.  I saw it coming and took evasive action.  It was quite the ride for a moment but smoothed right back out as fast as it hit.

[robodad]

Was in my 21' Bayliner Trophy fishing black bass and ling cod a short distance from Tatoosh over a rock pile or pinnicle or what ever and we were fishing about 45-50' deep and a swell came in and in the bottom of the swell we looked at the depth finder and it said 10' then the next one came in and it said 6', we didn't wait around for the 3rd one. 

While in the Coast Guard I was severly injured by a rogue wave while on our way to the Valdez Oil clean up effort in the Gulf of Alaska, Captain estimated it at 60+ feet. Our boat was only 210', That was a long night !!!

[Black Plague]

yeah you really do have to be careful out there...one time we were stuck between Tatoosh and Wada when the waves started rolling in ...we were fishin in our bass boats which are pretty sea worthy..mostly...well the waves weren't getting any better so we had to head back to Neah bay with a 200 hp Yamaha on a 21 ft bass boat you can get places in a hurry...we would drive up one wave and ride it out as best we could and then go up the next one and kinda surf it out ...well this was going pretty well when all of a sudden a wave came towards us insted of with the direction we were going I swear we were nearly submerged,,,luckily we were able to hold on and not even lose any rods....