Seventeen passengers aboard Intrepid arrived at Point Loma Sportfishing December 4 with skipper Danny Nichols, after a ten-day open-party trip to the Southern Banks and Alijos Rocks. "The weather was nice," said Nichols, "but we got a day of rain down south."

Larry Brown, of Playa Del Ray caught the two best fish, a 157.8 and 139-pound yellowfin. "Danny saw metering fish on the sonar, so I used a sinker with a rubber-band and within minutes, I was bit."

Larry fished a 9/0 Mustad 2005 hook on 80-pound P-Line, an Avet HX reel on a Hastings Challenger rod. "It's a new series with new technology," Larry remarked about the recently introduced rod. "It's just been released on the market."

Buzz Brizendine, owner-skipper of the Prowler, is helping out the Intrepid as a crewman. His son Ryan, who works at Fisherman's Landing Tackle Shop, was aboard as an angler.

"I love the boat," said Ryan, who landed his biggest yellowtail ever; a 45.6-pound Alijos mossback. "It has every amenity that you'd ever need, and Danny's a great Captain."

Ryan took 15-minutes to fight the yellowtail after it bit a fly-lined sardine on a 4/0 Mustad 94150 J hook, 50-pound Izorline Topshot with Izorline Spectra, a Penn 12T reel modified by Cal's 2-speed, and a Calstar Grafighter 700 H rod.

"Ryan's fun to fish with," continued Larry. "He's a good angler, but it's easy when you start out young with good instruction.

"I came out for the big fish, but Danny finally decided that they weren't co-operating and we should go have some fun. He took us up the line and we fished yellowtail. All of the passengers loved it.

"I'm doing two chartered trips on the boat next year. One will be with 976-Tuna and the other will be with SportfishingReport.com."

Xavier Lopez of Riverside was second for a 71-pound tuna, and Vern Roberts of Naturita, CO was third with a 67-pound yellowfin.

"This was my first long range trip," said Xavier. "They took real good care of us."