"We began fishing about 3 AM this morning," posted the Royal Polaris, "and it didn't take too long for some of the guys to start catching very nice 5 and 6-pound skipjack. Craig Drummond and Ed Delaney were the first to put them to good use hooking up about the same time. Craig's hit the deck first, a 255 pound tuna. That's getting so big it almost approached the size of the pastrami sandwiches we had for lunch.

"Ed's went 223 so we had a pair of deuces to start the trip off. The skippies kind of disappeared and a few more popped up just around daybreak. Matt Walenta and Greg De Felice (the East Coat Connection) proved they could catch fish other than wahoo and Greg got a personal best 231 and Matt landed a 213. All the above mentioned fish were skipjack baitfish and as you can imagine, everyone will be trying to catch and subsequently put out a skippie tomorrow morning. Once the early morning smoke cleared there was success with both kite and bait fishing but it was hard to come by. All the cows came in the early morning bite. The day produced several honorable mentions that didn't come up to that mark but reached as high as 180. Of course there were some smaller ones mixed in also. All in all it was an outstanding first day of fishing, and the weather is basically outstanding also. Wind, which had been bad here lately was quite manageable, and it was sunny and warm."