Red Rooster Christmas 10 day trip report

Around the 15th of December I heard the Rooster was running a Christmas 10 day and going light..When I called there were 18 signed up and when I got to the landing I was told that after a few last minute cancellations we were running with 15....Sweet...I have to hand it to Linda Palm for running the trip with such a light load and more then likely losing money on the deal...Second captain Joe was running the trip and since I've fished with him before I knew it would be good...The plan was to go to Alijos rocks to start then head to the lower banks..

Pulled into the rocks on Monday morning in Flat calm weather..



We spent from 10 am Monday till noon Tuesday picking away at a nice 35 to 40 pound grade of Tuna with a few larger in the mix...



I got a pretty good one on the second morning,85 pounds at the landing...I ended up tagging 5 fish at the rocks..



Pulled the plug on Tuesday after lunch and headed south to the big fish banks below Mag bay...Very tough to get a bite down there on the anchor but the bites were good fish..Nothing for me in a day and a half including a 4 hour Kite rotation that I finally yelled Uncle on...

I think the total for our time on the lower banks was around 15 Tuna with 5 cows and the rest between 95 and 195...

A shot of Mike coming in from a skiff ride with the jackpot winner..



And a picture of the fish on the big boat..



After a day and a half we ran up to the Flathead bank to find the smaller grade of fish..At about 0800 we threw some bait and they came up big time,a few scoops had the Tuna doing back-flips off the stern and bedlam erupted...Everyone was bit on a nice 50 to 60 pound grade of Tuna...About 6 fish filled the kill box and we had a steady morning getting 65 of this grade,Nice.....



After that day we ran up to the ridge and started on the 23 spot..While soaking bait I felt a small tug but really no run and reeled the fish to the boat and to my and everyone Else's surprise it was a nice Wahoo caught on 40 pound Fluoro...









We ran up to Benitos overnight looking for Yellow and found a good hit on them,around 75 for the day...They were all on the bottom so it was Yo=Yo jigging all the way...I had 4 on the butterfly iron..Called it a trip and headed for the barn,when all was said and done I had 10 Tuna that went 528 pounds at the canner plus the wahoo and tails..

Running in with the Excel on a flat calm ocean.I don't think I saw a wind wave in 10 days as the water was flat and the weather warm to very hot...



All in all a great trip with 15 riders,everyone had there own stateroom..The Red Rooster is a great operation and I'm pretty close to making it my boat of choice..The galley service is the best with a great menu,plenty of snacks and not one fish meal as other boats seem to be serving to cut costs...A real first class boat,I can't think of any other way to spend 10 days after Christmas...Catching fiush and gettin a suntan...