Andy came down for a thorough yet quick seminar on the workings of the boat, safety, crew introduction and plan on what we might expect fishing wise on the voyage. At the end of the seminar, Bill and I had a raffle, and gave out two Accurate Boss reels, 5 custom Seeker rods, quite a bit of new product from Braid, shirts and discount certificates from 5 Star fish processing, fluorocarbon from BHP, Fisherman's Landing Tackle, Sportsman's Seafood, and some bling from Pelagic. And everyone received a new style Accurate T shirt.
We had quite a few anglers returning from previous years, and some new faces as well. The crew had a couple of new faces as well, Dylan (D Bag) on the deck, and Jamie helping Rick in the galley. Our first night, Rick provided a great prime rib dinner, a mere indication of the great meals we were to have over the entire trip.
No fishing this first afternoon, and probably none on Saturday either. Andy's plan was to bomb down to Alijos Rocks for tuna. The next day, there would be 3 boats joining us there, so getting situated in the prime location was key.
Andy gave a great presentation on the gear we would need to prepare for tuna battles on arrival at the stones, then the crew set out to assist in making sure each angler was ready. Bill Casper and I handed out the Accurate loaner gear as it was needed or wanted. The Accurate guys have really upgraded the loaner gear to include many of the new models of reels, including the Extreme series! They are all filled with spectra, all the angler has to do is connect a topshot of their choice, and they are ready to fish.
Day two was just a travel day, and by noon all gear was ready for the first baits to be flylined at the stones. Then we amused ourselves watching movies, playing cribbage, or reading.
The current was against us during the last 18 hours, making our arrival to the rocks a bit later than we had hoped for, but finally we spotted the huge rocks poking out of the water. It's always been a breathtaking sight for me, out in the middle of the ocean a outcropping of rocks!
As we approached, Andy put trolling team one up, just in the hope a wahoo migh have ventured into the cold water for a bite, but all we got was a small tuna on a marauder. Then Andy metered around, tried north ridge for a short while, didn't like the conditions, so he moved southwest.
It took awhile for the tuna to get on us, but finally Boltar got us rolling on the kite. Marc caught a yellowfin tuna about 45 pounds, not a bad start. Willy and Allen then started their game, each getting tuna bites at will. It took a hot bait and a good cast, as we had classic current against the wind, and the conditions were definitely not ideal.
All in all, it was a great day, as we caught 99 tagable yellowfin tuna, and released quite a few yellowtail in the 10-18 pound range. That is a good day, and so we felt this would be our spot for when the other boats showed.
Day four, I got bit right at gray light, and put my first ever hundred pound tuna at Alijos on the boat. This was on my new Extreme 600, with a 60# Seaguar topshot, on a Super Seeker 6480H rod. That fish gave me no problem at all on that gear. About an hour later, I got another hundred pounder on a Boss B2-870 with 50# Seaguar, on a Super Seeker 6465XH, again, no problem.
We definitely noticed the fish not paying as much attention to us with the other boats around now, and only scored 26 tuna this day. However, we caught some largers this day: Boltar with a 143, Archie with a fish over 140 also, and Allen Lemburg with a 109.
One of our new anglers who stuck with it landed a nice tuna on flyline all by himself, Hank, with son Johnathon in the photo as well.
On the 5th day of the trip, we were still anchored in the same place, the other 3 boats still at the rocks with us, and all 4 boats were catching tuna. Conditions straightened out some, with current finally going downhill, making it much easier to get a bait out away from the boat. Here Willy shows his style on a typical sized tuna for this trip. 
It seemed like if we were here all day, we would've put a hurting on the tuna, but since Andy thought a move was our best bet, we took what we had by afternoonish, and headed towards the ridge. 
Next stop, yellowtail. We arrived at the Thetis Bank early on the 6th day, Andy looked around on the fish finding equipment , and decided on the spot to anchor up. It took a short while for the yellows to get excited about our offering of the "Songee" as Cates terms the sardines, but they did get on us. We quickly learned why the crew was urging us to release the 18 pound yellows at Alijos, as these were a good solid 20 pound average with many largers thrown in.
Pictured here Louis Jimenez on the left, and Carol Thompson on the right show the average grade at Thetis. Still, the action and grade was not quite what Cates had hoped for, and we needed to get up the line with any hopes of trophies at Cedros the next day, so Andy left them biting and ran up to the 23 fathom spot. He found a likely spot to set the anchor on, and we threw more songee over the side to attract the yellows. It didn't take long to see results, and the grade and action was much better.Here Jeff Bruner gets going with the jig battlion.
At this point, as Andy says, everybody that wants one on has one on! It was really good yellow fishing, whether you are a yoyo fisherman, like the long rod and surface iron combo, or just plain enjoy flylining a bait, the results were the same. Nice big yellowtail.
Here's a couple of our long rod experts showing off their catch: Bill Casper and Rick "X Man" Xavier . It didn't take long to get our daily limits, and what we released most anglers might consider trophies. This trip's anglers showed great restraint by releasing most until they got the desired sized fish to gaff. The Red Rooster 3 crew is very good at getting the hook out and releasing these creatures unharmed. That way, when you do get a "good one", get a pic and slap a tag on it's cheek!
Jeff Bruner with a good one on the plug. If you ever get a chance to fish with Jeff, he is a wealth of fishing knowledge. I feel lucky he is a regular with his buddy Louis every year on this trip.
We were about done, so Nick from the crew tries out one of Fishybuzz's spinning outfits.
Andy pulled the anchor, as we had many miles to run up, as the current was pushing down hard. Next spot: Cedros.
We had a choppy night, fought the current, and our arrival to the south end of Cedros for day 7 was delayed until well after lunch. We hit a spot right on the south end for a couple of fish, here Sonny Jones shows the size fish we expect to see today and how nice the weather was.
Andy drove the Rooster up, and the entire crew was in the glasses looking for sign of cow yellow. Finally on a little point area, a spot of breezers was up, we slid in and threw bait on it, and it was indeed game on! We hit a few different spots in this area, it wasn't as good as the first spot we hit, but indeed was good quality yellowtail fishing in Tahitian Dream weather!
Our last day of angling would take us offshore, prospecting for albacore. We were in green water, as again the current and choppiness kept us from reaching our goal area as early as we would have liked. Some of the boats were doing pretty good up above us, so Andy kicked it up to a fast troll to insure we would at least have a shot at longfins.
Finally, a little after lunch, we had a blind jigstrike, and we got three on the troll, and another 5 on bait. One more long jig fish, and we ran out of time. That official call for the lines in/calling it a trip was made. We stowed our gear and the crew set about cleaning the boat.
It was a fantastic trip, good times were had by all. Many thanks to Linda, Christina, Andy, Brian, Nick, Fernando, Dylan, Tom, Rick and Jamie. Let's do it all again next year!
