Shawn Steward docked Excel at Fisherman's Landing May 25 after a five-day trip with 23 anglers. They tried the offshore waters and the Benitos Islands.

On May 22, Shawn wrote: "Today was a decent day at the island with a breeze out of the south and a flat sea. There was really good sign of fish all day but they did not cooperate until after 1400 hours. We only had 10 yellowtail up until that point, but the quality was a really good 25-pound average. In the afternoon we were able to keep one fish going most of the time and ended up with a nice day and we topped it off with a nice White Sea bass just before dark."

The day before, Steward told of finicky tuna: "After listening to some of the reports we opted to look for some new water to fish to see if we could get some new fish located. After a long day and night of travel we found ourselves in some 66-degree water and it was purple in color. In that water we found some spots of yellowfin from 20 to 60 pounds. We only managed to land one of the three that we hooked and it was a 35-pound fish. There were several other spots around that were uncooperative and just boiled around as we drifted. So overall we had a tough day as far as putting some fish on the boat, but saw very encouraging sign for the future trips."

At the dock, Robert Melugin of Redding proved to be the winner, with a 35.2-pound yellowtail. He said he got it with a sardine on a 2/0 Gamakatsu hook, 30-pound Izorline on a Penn 145 Squidder reel and a Lamiglas 527 rod, "?Ķfrom the 70's."

Mike Bonsignore of Santa Barbara was second, for a 33.6-pound yellowtail. He also got a nice white sea bass.

Ron Satow of Hermosa Beach was third, for a 32.4-pound yellowtail. He was the lucky angler who bagged a yellowfin tuna on a sardine with a balloon, which made it ineligible for the jackpot.