I’ve been the guest reporter for over 20 years and the second to the last report almost always goessomething like “maybe saving the best for last” or “hopefully we’ll go out with a bang”, but guess what, this time we really did it! We started fishing the beach banks around 8:30 this morning and bottom fishing seemed to be the only game in town. It was wide open on tan and olive groupers and a few beautiful yellowtail around 35lbs came over too. We put a kite out and you couldn’t give away a turn on it because the groupers were coming over nonstop. Dick Emerson finally stuck a decent tuna on the kite and we came off the bottom to make sure he could land it unencumbered. About that time we started to see some tuna crashing and when Tom Neuman took a turn on the kite he landed a 206 and suddenly every one lost interest in deep dropping and began fly lining. What followed was a slow steady pick on both the kite and bait of the best quality tuna we had on the trip. Neil Campbell landed a 229 on the kite, Howard Hada stuck a 217, Steve Williams got a 252 (last fish of the trip) on bait, Stan (3 cow) Kanow landed a 283 on bait which was his 3rd consecutive personal best on this trip and the guy who never caught a cow before this trip will now claim the jackpot. Eddie, who has been a deckhand on the boat just short of forever, celebrated a birthday today, and it will be one he won’t soon forget. During a lull in the action he put a bait out and nearly 2 hours later he landed his personal best (by 1lb)and the biggest fish of the trip at 304lbs. If you’re keeping track that’s 5 cows and a super cow for the day and 16 over 200 for the trip! That’s why you hope Roy is the Capt. when you’re aboard. When he’s not keeping you in stitches with his antics, he’s putting you on quality fish. It was truly a story book ending to an already successful trip. Since this is my last report (I will be getting off in Cabo for some hard earned r&r with my wife tomorrow) I’ll take this opportunity to thank the great crew that made all this possible: Capt. Roy, Eddie, Doug, Terrance, Ben, Jimmy (aka.Rambo), and of course our master chefs Alex and Mark. Without their assistance our fish count would be far less than it is. I also want to re-thank our sponsors, Seeker rods, Calstar rods, Blackwater International, Tady lures, and Ernie Seko. And of course a big thank you to Howard Hada our Izorline rep. who put this altogether. This trip has a history of great catches and great people and this one will go down as one of the best. It has been my great pleasure to bring you these daily reports and I have heard from several of the guys that their wives and families have enjoyed my writing and had some good laughs at my poems. I appreciate that greatly and thank you all for following along. We will be in Cabo before the sun makes it there and I will leave the rest of the reports in the crew’s capable hands. In honor of Cabo I give you the last…..

POEM OF THE DAY

In Cabo we found some cod
That far south it’s really odd
Word got out quick
And the boats became thick
Cause everyone loves Cape cod.