The true test was set before us at daylight when we awoke to a beautiful, calm sea, free of significant wind with only a slight residual swell. With an exhausted list of excuses, the day had come to make good on our predictions that calm weather (in this zone) and good fishing for trophy yellowfin coincide. Sure enough, after a morning spent getting relocated while weeding through schools of thirty to one hundred pound fish, we hit the right one mid afternoon and treated this group of anglers to a taste of what they have been yearning for since October 2005.

There's just something about one hundred seventy five to two hundred fifty pound class yellowfin catapulting out of the water, flashing through the wake, leaving giant, eight foot boil's right under the scuppers that has it's own flavor, and once you get a taste of it, your impression of fishing for tuna will be forever changed. This, of course, is exactly what we are hoping for as long range fishing is the only venue on the planet capable of producing the sights and sounds, seemingly impossible memories, of the type of tuna action known in the "good old days".

Now we have had a shot, and with five days to go, plenty of space in the hatch, epic weather in the forecast, and finally, a fantastic load of bait, we are ready to get down to business and make up for lost time.