“We stayed the night at the stones,” reported American Angler December 4, “and once again awoke to a flat calm, no wind, beautiful morning. As soon as it was light enough to see - there was just enough bird life to get us in the right country. We had scratch fishing for a few hours where we kept one or two going but they were all decent grade. We pulled the anchor, made a move and found a zone that wanted to bite. We had several fish going for a few hours and we were really busy but as fast as it started, it shut off sometime during midafternoon. We ended up the day with 80 tuna and a couple or three handfuls of yellows. Most of the tuna were 25 to 35 pounds, but we had a fair share of 45 to 90-pound fish in the mix to keep us on our toes. Mark Crampton had one of the larger fish boated for the day.



Bird Schools Producing

“The past two days have been great here in the Clarion Island Buffer Zone,” reported Excel skipper Justin Fleck December 4, “with steady fishing on 100-190 pound tuna. The weather has been holding for us making it easy to locate these bird schools out 6-10 miles off the island. Some stops you only hook one or two fish and other ones you bend the whole boat. One things for sure, these guys are having a blast. Here are some pictures from yesterday and today.

“On a side note; long time Excel chef, and brother, Jason and wife Hillary had their first child this morning. Their baby girl weighed in at 6lbs. 6 oz. Congratulations!”



Gals Can Fish

“I would like to mention how wonderful it is,” said the report from Royal Polaris December 4, “to have 3 lady fisherman on this trip. Susan Beck has been fishing here on the Royal Polaris since 1977. She is an excellent angler and much fun to have on the boat. Kathy Rounds has been fishing the Royal Polaris since 1995. She does knot tying seminars at the Long Beach show and is an excellent angler. Christie Maxa is on her second trip aboard the Royal Polaris, and has caught several 150-pound Yellowfin tuna on this trip.”



A Day-Saver

“It was slow, until this evening,” reported Shogun December 4. “Most of the day was spent looking for bigger yellowfin tuna. We hit numerous dolphin/bird/sonar spots for not a whole lot. Then in the early evening we came across a few meter marks that decided they wanted to bite. We landed fish from 50 pounds to 290 pounds and that was a great way to end the day.”