While we were at The Long Beach Hall Show, Red Rooster III skipper Andy Cates was down south, fishing for big tuna. He found a few this weekend. Here are his reports from Saturday and Sunday. "We had a decent first day of action," reported Cates on Saturday, "48 tuna from 70 to 100 pounds. Only one bigger fish, caught by Bob Michener, a 230-pounder. We had a couple other decent fish hooked, but they fell off. All in all, for a first day it was nice. The weather is great, and makes it nice for looking around. It looks like good weather for the next couple of days, so hopefully we can get some better-sized fish nailed down. The next day Andy wrote, "Good evening folks. Windy conditions made it a little tough today. No big fish caught and ending the day with 28 tuna. They were the same overall grade, 70 to 90 pounds. There were a couple of better-sized fish but not enough to make a difference. Maybe we can get on some bigger fish tomorrow." After The Show Five days in Long Beach at the Fred Hall Show in the Convention Center left us exhausted but pleased to have learned much while making many new friends. As I write on Monday, my muscles ache from the long days and the teardown and hauling process of the new booth Paul Sweeney and I operated, but I'm already thinking about the Del Mar show, which opens March 24. We talked to an awful lot of people on the five days of the show. By the time Sunday afternoon came to a close I was forgetting the names of some of my friends, or when I'd seen them last. We sold a lot of autographed copies of our new book At The Rail, however, and a fair number of our ten latest videos as well. Walking the show whenever there was a calm moment, we took a zillion pictures with a new Sony a55 camera, one of the newfangled types that shoots stills, panoramas, RAW and JPEG photos and HDR. I've got a long way to go learning how to drive this little piece of technological machinery, but we snagged a few nice shots in the main building, and you can see some of them here. One of the great things about the show is seeing famous anglers and manufacturers you don't meet anywhere else. I'd never met Gary Loomis before, but we shared a few minutes of entertaining one another with seafaring stories of big fish, killer whales and early versions of fishing gear. Loomis is a fine story-teller. I saw Ralph Mikkelsen, The Long Ranger, almost every day. His energy is amazing, and he's always good for a funny remark, as is Leon Todd, who was getting around pretty well when he wasn't at his Calstar booth. I signed books with Ingrid Poole at the Excel booth, chatted with the Izorline gang and fishin' gals Kathy Rounds, Jan Howard, Wendy Tochihara, Shauna Barton and many others. The new all-tackle record and 130-pound line record-holding tuna caught by Mike Livingston of Sunland was a mounted display that drew thousands of people to the Vagabond booth, and rightly so. Vagabond owner-operator Mike Lackey and his wife Dawn had to be pleased with those numbers, because many of them picked up information and brochures, greatly broadening the potential customer base. The new record is good for everyone in the business, of course. I saw Joe Pfister and Randy Penny at the Seeker display, where they've got some new prototypes, including a 3 X 5 and a 1 X 3 blank in the testing stages. The 3 X 5 was on its way out with Intrepid skipper Kevin Osborne, who is departing March 15. I tried to bend that baby while he held it and thought it would be perfect for 200-pound line and 400-pound tuna, since the best I could do was to get it to show a gentle curve. The lighter rod would be better for wimpy codgers like me, thank you. Thanks to Bart Hall and Mike Lum, we had a wonderful location, right across the aisle from Accurate, where David and Doug Nilsen worked hard with Ben Secrest selling T shirts and showing their latest products, and next to the Intrepid and Temple Fork Outfitters, where Loomis was working with Nick Curcione, the man who wrote Hot Rail and who's been fishing the fly rod for many years. Thanks as well to Pete Gray, for letting me appear on Let's Talk Hookup Sunday morning, to get a plug in for At The Rail. Bill Shedd of AFTCO and Bart Hall were among numerous personalities sitting at the broadcast table. All the San Diego landings and long range boats were represented, another of the show's high points, and most of the skippers were there to meet and greet their clients, with the exception of Andy Cates, who's out fishing with the Red Rooster III. Frank LoPreste of Fisherman's Landing and John Yamate of Seaforth seemed to be there every hour the show was open, showing much poise and endurance. There was so much to see and do at this year's Long Beach Fred Hall Fishing and Boat Show I can't do it justice in brief. My apologies to the many friends I've left out here, and especially to those of you whose names escaped me when you appeared in front of my booth. I blame exhaustion, brain fade and age for the failings. In the end, as Paul and I were breaking down our first booth, we had some invaluable help volunteered by Gary Gillingham of Accurate, and from Glenn Kuromi and his sister Sheri from Calstar. They made it possible for us to get the last of our gear out with minimal effort. Thanks also to Ceasar Chang, the Calstar rep who saved my bacon with half a sub sandwich when I'd had nothing to eat all day, and was getting cranky as a little kid. The show was hard work, but it was educational, entertaining fun. I'll do it again after the soreness wears off.