We finished off the fishing phase of our voyage with a nice afternoon scratch on twenty five to thirty pound yellowtail after a long morning search that yielded plenty of action, but only a handful of the nicer quality fish. As we were in a strictly quality mode, we poked and prodded our way around many of the usual haunts as well as a number of our own favorites known to produce hits on the jumbo grade of yellowtail. As it turned out, the quality yellows simply appeared to be on an afternoon program as at least one of the areas we looked at in the morning turned on as the day progressed. Fortunately in our case, although we left an area that produced later, we happened upon a productive afternoon zone that made for a solid ending to the trip with a fantastic surface showing of the big yellows as they were rousted from their slumber in the kelp by our plentiful amount of sardines. As it was our final stop of the trip, there was no need to hold back, and I can say with certainty in yesterday's case that it made all the difference.

Now the trip north begins and once again we are faced with a rather dubious weather forecast calling for moderate to strong Santa Ana winds tonight and tomorrow morning. Regardless our itinerary is set, it just appears that we may get bounced around a bit in the process of heading home. Of course many of you know that this scenario is not unusual for a trip up the coast and we are well equipped to accommodate whatever mother nature sends in our direction. With any luck in timing the conditions will not hamper our progress too long.