The final results upon our San Diego arrival today were quite impressive with a beautiful load of both fresh and frozen trophy yellowfin in the 140 ? 255# class. The grand total of fish over the two hundred pound mark was eighteen with at least one fish discovered that slipped under the radar and was not weighed for official credit on board. In this instance credit must be awarded to master angler/Captain Todd Phillips of the charter vessel Tonnage whose fish can be safely estimated at 204 pounds. In the heat of the battle when we are processing fish for the RSW tank, the time between the catch hitting the deck and the dressed fish entering the chilled seawater is crucial and for this reason we rarely, but sometimes do miss one close to the two hundred pound mark. Regardless, we want to be certain that Todd receives appropriate credit for his accomplishment.

On another note it seems that my latest post regarding the use of short top shots created quite a stir in the long range community. First, I must say to those of you on this last voyage that you are still the finest group of rod and reel fishermen I have ever fished with. Even you short top shot fishermen. This just happened to be an opportune moment to make a point that Randy and I have wanted to make for several years. The mistake was not simply fishing with the short top shot. The mistake was fishing the short top shot in difficult conditions and sticking with it too long despite disproportionately poor averages.

That said, this was a fantastic learning opportunity and should be viewed as such. Thankfully the fishing was so good that it did not make the slightest difference in the success of our voyage that we were dumping a few fish. Everyone caught plenty, we still filled the boat, and had eighteen over two hundred despite the steep learning curve for some with the short top shots. So we now move forward a little smarter with the knowledge we gained this last trip. If you are suffering from wounded pride do not feel alone. Every true fisherman is subject to the same type lessons regularly. I and all of my colleagues have ended many a day (even worse a trip) licking our wounds following a single or series of poor moves. It comes with the territory and is all part of the game. The challenge of course is to see how and what you do next time you are on the water. My guess is that you will all be better fishermen. My hope is that I will be there to see it.

As I reported earlier we will be entering our annual maintenance period and will not be posting on a regular basis until the beginning of April. In the meantime I will post an occasional progress report and perhaps even a few more fishing opinions during this downtime. Farewell for a little while and I hope to see all of you at the Fred Hall show this year.

Tim