Fishing for tuna of 200 pounds and larger is on a pace to rival last year's all-time record catch of 2243 cows, including 12 tuna of over 300 pounds.

As of Christmas, the catch of cows stood at 278, including 15 tuna over 300 pounds.

A big push toward the total came when Andy Cates opened the season with a run to the Hurricane Bank that produced 71 cows, and he later added to that with a new record catch of five 300-pounders from the coast of Baja. Steve Loomis once had a catch of ten cows on a Revillagigedos trip, many years before I started keeping records of the long range tuna catches.