Hi Gang,

We just finished our first trip of the year as we arrive back to the dock this morning with a 0600 ETA. We departed San Diego bay on Thursday afternoon with a very nice load of sardine. Thursday nights dinner was chef Brians signiture prime rib and it was spectacular. Looked for fish in the late afternoon and stopped on a small batch of bluefin at 2000 that we caught two 30 pound bluefin off of. The next morning we awoke to calm seas and about 5 knots of wind. At about 0730 we were able to locate and set up on a large school of bluefin. The grade of this fish was impressive with just about everything over 100 pounds. We landed a couple of 80 pound fish, everything else was over 100#'s  and the largest taped out at 140 pounds. This school stayed with us all day long and the drift lasted over 8 hours. Although we had opportunities throughout the day, our landing percentage was not very good because the guys couldn't get bit on anything bigger than 40 or 50# test line. We had a lot of break offs, at least 5 guys got spooled, and I think that most of the fish we were hooking were over 150#'s. During our 8 hour drift, we had between 2 and 6 fish hooked at any given time. A super fun day filled with opportunity. The next day was a different story all together. We did locate a couple of small batches of bluefin but we never had a bite. We only managed a few small yellowtail for our day. Our last nights dinner was a perfectly cooked fillet minion, dijon mashed potatoes, and bacon wrapped asparagus, finished with a homemade berry bread pudding and ice cream.  Overall it was a great trip with good people, good food, and some good chances at trophy bluefin tuna. Thank you to everyone that joined us on this trip. We are out again this coming Wednesday on a Soft Steel sponsored 4 day trip. We are ready. Life is good. Thanks for checking in, Captain Bill Cavanaugh and the Intrepid Team