What began as a sharky visit to the Hurricane Bank ended as a good trip for tuna but a great trip, with near-limits around, for wahoo, when Andy Cates docked Red Rooster at H&M Landing March 25. The 16-day trip was sponsored by John Loftus and Larry Martin, with 20 anglers aboard. Cates left the Hurricane Bank and entertained his anglers with some fishing offshore from the Revillagigedos Islands.

That's where Chef Jorge Nicafore hooked a wahoo on a gold Raider jig.

"It ran under the boat right away,"said Jorge. "We sent down a sinker on the line to free the fish, but the line broke."

Next, Cates started up the boat and toured around, for a couple of hours, with some trolling stops and starts.

"It was amazing. We made two or three stops, we backed up several times and covered about three miles,"remembered Cates. "A guy was trying for squid when he snagged a line, and when we brought it in, the wahoo was still there, on that 50-pound line! We made soup out of that one.

"It was the best wahoo fishing I can remember for the last ten years,"he continued. "We had one jump on the boat, from the starboard side over the rail to land on the stern deck!

"The tuna fishing was good. It was like the fall ten-day fishing; chasing surfaced schools. They were on squid; we saw the ink spots. Then we got some yellowtail at San Pablo. We didn't miss anything."

Allan Babashoff of La Habra Heights won first place for a 268.4-pound yellowfin that took a flylined mackerel on an 8/0 ringed Super Mutu hook.

"He hit hard,"said Allan, "and I saw the boil about 50 yards away. He went down took me around the boat twice, and came up on the bow about two hours later. They opened the passenger gate to bring him on.

"It's my first jackpot on the Red Rooster III after 15 years of fishing the boat,"he added. Allan posed with his trophy tuna for several pictures, including one with each of his sons, David and Joseph.

Bill Schneider of Poway won second place for a tuna that just missed the cow category, at 198 pounds. It also bit a mackerel.

Art Green, Newport CPA, won third place for a 171-pound tuna, and he also won a trophy for the largest wahoo caught, excluding trolled fish. Art's wahoo weighed 76 pounds and won a carved wooded wahoo clock.

The Rooster will be in for about 55 days, doing extensive boat work for the summer surface fishing season.