"We had excellent Yellowfin tuna fishing today," said the report from Royal Polaris January 8. "Most of the fish were in the 80 to 100-pound range, with a few in the 170 to 195-pound range. It was steady fishing all day long. We made another tank of bait tonight. Looking forward to what tomorrow brings. So wish us luck." The Skippie Isn't Dead Not long ago, we looked at a VMC hook with odd angles. I thought it reminded me of the old Mustad skippie hooks, which I used almost exclusively for summer tuna fishing until they went off the local market. I thought the company had quit making them. But Steve Tagami, sales officer for Mustad US, gave me a couple recently when he was visiting out this way from the company's US headquarters in Auburn, NY. Here's what they look like; I thought they were good for a higher percentage of hookups to bites when I fished albies with them back in the days before the longfin disappeared into drift gillnets for a decade. Tagami was headed toward the Denver show when I saw him. He'll likely be out here again in March for the Fred Hall Fishing Shows in Long Beach and Del Mar. If you have hook questions, he's the man to ask. Hall Shows FishingVideos.com and Oceanic Productions will have a booth at both Fred Hall Shows this year. We'll have books and videos and calendars for sale. Paul Sweeney and I will be on hand to meet anglers, sign books and just generally enjoy the biggest fishing shows of the season. Stop by and say hi at Long Beach or Del Mar. Amberjack New long rangers are often puzzled by the appearance of a fish that fights like a yellowtail but is stockier, darker and heavier than a yellow. Some are dusky yellow, others may be copper-toned, almost red. This fish is an amberjack, seldom seen north of Alijos Rocks. It's a great fighter, usually associated with the bottom and structure, but sometimes comes to the surface to take chum or feed on baitfish. A closely related species is known as the Almaco jack. Yellowtail, amberjack and Almaco jacks are all considered to be subtropical, but amberjack and Almaco jacks are found in warmer waters than yellowtail. Lately amberjack have been showing up in long range catches, like the one shown here by Nacho Camarena of Oceanside, who bright it home from a recent American Angler trip. Most west coast anglers don't eat amberjack, but Nacho wanted to try it. How was amberjack for eating? Nacho said he didn't cook it, but took some down to a friend who runs the Fish Joint, a sushi café in Oceanside, where it was prepared in that style. "They said it made the best Hamachi," reported Nacho. "It was a little more firm than yellowtail, but it tasted good, a lot like yellowtail."