Red Rooster III returned to H&M Landing January 3 after an eight-day trip run with 21 anglers guided by skipper Julio Ochoa. Big yellowfin were pursued for two days, he noted when he filed the following report:

"Day-2 Early in the morning when we got to the big fish grounds,??we had twenty plus knots of wind.??But there were no seas to go with it, so it was plenty workable. We still had hope. As it turned out, we caught nothing. But not because we didn't find fish, but because we had fish that would not bite. We actually had them boil around, but they just would not take??a hooked bait.??

"Day-3??We started with very good weather. We were very exited because we stood a chance at finding more porpoise than the day before. We were wrong. It was very hard to find them because there's just not very many around the??bank. The porpoise that??we did find were off the edge on north end of the bank. It was a very good bunch of porpoise and they had a big school of tuna with them. We got on them and it came under the boat,??around the boat, and??behind the boat.??The fish??were on us.??They boiled around??and put on a good show.

"I thought ???Here we go. We are going to get a shot at some big fish'. But I was wrong. All they did was just boil around and left. I could not figure out why we could not hook one. I guess that's the way it goes. Nobody had a good day. There were a total of seven boats looking for the same thing??and only three got lucky there late. Needless to say we did not. So after two day of??looking, I decided to go back to the ridge.??

"Day-4 We got to the ridge at 0530 hrs.?? We had very good fishing on a variety of fish. We had tuna, yellowtail, grouper and a couple of pargo.??We had a day of action.??

"Day-5 We got to San Pablo at 0600 hrs.??We did not fish there very long. It was not clean fishing. It was all mixed yellowtail, bonito, and skipjack. We worked our way up to Clam Bay and we had a very good day of yellowtail fishing. The grade of yellowtail was fourteen to eighteen pounds with a few fish eighteen to twenty-five pounds.?? We finished our trip at Clam Bay ridge and are now heading for San Diego."

At the docks, Julio weighed the fish.

"The yellowtail bit very well on yoyo jigs," he noted. "They bit the standard colors: blue and white, scrambled eggs, dorado. We tried Sacramento Reef as well, and had good rock fishing there and we ate the rockfish for lunch. "We had good weather all the way up."

Peter J., a well-known Newport artist who makes colored drawings of boats and other nautical items, won the jackpot for a 31.9-pound dorado that bit on a heavy tuna rig under troll. The bait was a mackerel, said Peter J., on a 9/0 Eagle Claw hook asnd 130-pound line.

Victor Armendariz of San Jose won second place for a 29.7-pound yellowfin tuna. Gary Thompson of Rancho Santa Margarita was third, for a 29.7-pound dorado. Ryan Van Cleave of San Diego, a senior at University High, got honorable mention for his 86.7-pound grouper.