Art Taylor skippered his Searcher on a seven-day trip with 21 fishermen, and docked at Fisherman's Landing October 6. "Boy, there's plenty of warm water," he remarked. "There's wahoo on kelps north of Benitos, far north, in 77 degrees. There's plenty of yellowfin, lots of dorado and excellent fishing. We got to fish on six of our seven days."

Mike Townes of Lodi won first place for a 45.2-pound yellowfin tuna. He said he bagged it with a sardine on a 2/0 Owner Mutu hook on 25-pound Seaguar Premier fluorocarbon, 30-pound Izorline and 60-pound Line One spectra on an Avet LX reel and a Triton seven-foot rod.

Bill Battocchio of Camarillo won second place for a 28.4-pound yellowfin, and Matt Kirkpatrick of Bakersfield took third place honors with a 27-pound yellowtail. Kyle Yates of Carlsbad posed with a fish not much seen in these parts for the past ten years or so, a broad-striped skipjack of the species anglers call "purple skipjack," as distinguished from the more common tropical black skipjack. He said he planned to have it filleted for eating.