Justin Fleck docked Excel January 21 after the Jerry Brown Line One open charter of 15 days.?? There were five cows weighed after the trip with 18 anglers. Another cow appeared to have left with its angler without being weighed. Jerry Brown himself was aboard as chartermaster, fishing with several very sore ribs. He hooked an estimated 350-pounder that escaped.

"There's tuna from the Jaimie (Bank) to the Petrel," noted Justin.?? "We got limits, mostly on fish of 50 to 120 pounds, with a half-dozen cows. The 14/0 Mustad hooks worked very well with the mackerel bait a lot of the guys were using, with 75 to 100 feet of Big Game line, the boat's brand.

"The water is warming up again," continued the skipper. "It's 68 to 71 degrees. The fish are jugged with red crab and squid."

Lee Erlendson of Rancho Mirage won first place for a 270.4-pound whopper yellowfin that took his mackerel on a 9/0 Eagle Claw hook tied to 130-pound Seaguar fluorocarbon leader and 130-pound Line One Spectra. He said he used a Cal Sheets-treated Penn 50 reel and a Calstar 6455 XXH rod to beat the tuna in two hours.

"I was up the side when he bit. Then I was in the skiff for about ten minutes, but the motor died, and we had to get back on the big boat," said Lee. "The skiff just about swamped then, and the fish got wrapped on the sonar dome, and deckhand Oscar Marroquin went over the side and unwrapped him."

Ken Bell of Camarillo was second, for a 227-pounder. He also got a 207.4-pound tuna; both on mackerel and 8/0 Eagle Claw hooks. He used 130-pound Momoi and 130-pound Line One Spectra on a Penn 30 VSW reel and a Calstar 7455 XH rod to bring the bigger fish to the boat in about 30 minutes.

Ralph Fisher of Pt. Townsend, WA won third place for a 224-pounder. He fished a mackerel on a 7/0 Hayabusa hook tied to 130-pound Momoi line and 130-pound Line One Spectra. He used an Avet 50 SDS reel and a Seeker 6460 XXH rod.

"It seemed like it took forever," he said of the fight. "It was at least 45 minutes."

Dianne Chambers of Grants Pass, OR became the second woman in two days to bring in a cow when her 217.9-pounder was weighed by skipper Fleck on the certified scales. She spent two hard hours working on the fish, which took a mackerel on a 9/0 Eagle Claw hook tied to 130-pound Momoi line and 130-pound Line One Spectra on a Sheets-treated Penn 50 reel and a Calstar 755 XH rod.