"What a great day of fishing we had today," said the report for the Red Rooster III December 11. "We started off fishing for school-sized fish south of the ridge. We had phenomenal action for the whole morning until after lunch when we left to try for something different. The Yellowfin tuna were mixed with skipjack so on a couple of stops so we had to fish the dead sardines and chunk bait to avoid hooking the skippies. That seemed to be the best way to 'clean up' the stops.

"A couple of guys who were tossing poppers and surface irons were having a lot of fun. It was awesome to watch the yellowfin blow up on the poppers, even when they missed the hooks. After we had enough we headed south to look for bigger tuna and maybe some dorados. Late in the afternoon Nick in the tower saw some circling frigate birds and some splashing dorado. When we pulled up on the area it was game on. All 29 passengers aboard seemed to hook up at the same time.

"After a couple chaotic hours Captain Joe Crisci decided we were good on dorado and pulled the plug. We are currently steaming south; hopefully a rendezvous with big tuna is in our future."