Like the Sweet Sixteen and the Elite Eight, the Fred Hall Fishing Show at Del Mar has come and gone, leading southland anglers toward the oncoming surface fishing season.

Paul Sweeney and Bill Roecker visited the show Friday afternoon, and toured the main building.

While the down economy was probably the main subject of conversation, most of the vendors and manufacturers we talked with were cautiously upbeat. Tackle sellers in particular seemed to be doing well. Mike Lum, the point man for the Fred Hall shows, was thinking anglers felt pretty good about the prospects for a good season.

"They're buying," he said of the show's visitors, "and that's a good sign."

When we walked by the sections for Turner's Outdoorsman, Fisherman's Landing, Baja Fish Gear, Angler's Choice and other tackle sellers, all the registers and clerks were busy with customers.

There were new products to see in several places. The Accurate booth was showing off a new series of reels the Boss Extreme Two-Speed reels in models 400, 500 and 600 sizes. These are a bit like the Boss series, but beefed up like International-types.

"The guys want to catch cows on these little reels," said VP Ben Secrest. "You can see how we've beefed up the spools and the gearboxes."

Owner Hooks was showing off some new hooks for plastic baits, and Dennis Yamamoto showed me how they had weighted the keel of such hooks to get the baits to swim better.

Corey Samden of MC Swimbaits showed me a big plastic bait he called a slug, and said it was just about time for the big kelp bass to start banging on such swim baits.

Tony Paino of AA's showed me a new larger-sized Double Diamond bait, a deep bellied lobtail that produced a huge number of kelp bass (all released) for Red Rooster III anglers on a skiff visit to Cedros Island last summer.

That video is almost completed, and will go on sale soon. It features some of the best yellowtail fishing I've ever seen at Thetis Bank, as well as albacore and bluefin angling offshore on the way to Thetis and coming home from Cedros. It's called, "At The Rail & In The Skiff."

Resort operators from Alaska, Canada and Mexico were signing up clients for the new season's summer fishing, and so were the San Diego Landings, Fisherman's, Pt. Loma and H&M. We talked with John Ireland of Rancho Leonero, and made plans to spend a few days fishing East Cape there during the month of May.

Recently Calstar Rods released a new seven-foot heavy tuna stick, and it didn't take long for anglers to employ the new weapon on cow tuna. Not to be one-upped, Seeker rods has prototyped a seven-footer as well. I got to take a pull or two on Bill Casper's personal new seven-foot stick, which the company is calling the "2 x 4."

I expected something that would be very hard to bend, but the rod had a nice feel, a normal bend, and didn't feel extraordinarily heavy. It actually felt like something you could use on yellowtail, though that might be like plugging mosquitoes with a shotgun.

Not a fan of long rods on big fish, I'm wanting to give the 2 x 4 a try, just on the basis of that good "feel." It reminded me of the old days, when rod makers wanted to make sticks to handle line of 20 to 80 pounds. The tips was sensitive, but the butt was strong as a bull.

Long range fishing is always going through changes, and this year won't be the exception. If the fishing comes on like anglers think it might, this looks like it could be a fine season. Bring on the albies!