It was another signature Ekstrom finish drawing it down to the final half hour of remaining time to fish before we found the mother lode. Before that occured however the day was far from a far from a bust as we began our morning with another fantastic drift on one hundred to one hundred fifty pound yellowfin tuna that commenced just before daylight and lasted until 0800. In our first drift alone we managed to tag another thirty five yellowfin tuna well over one hundred pounds!

Following our big morning stop the island began to look different as the wind began to freshen quickly and conditions deteriorated. After several passes through the most productive zones during the previous three days, and another fruitless three hour tour on the outside, we worked back into the island for the afternoon with seven tags remaining to deploy of the original seven hundred sixty five. Again we made several passes through the hot zone to find giant current rips, lots of wind, and no fish. With a half hour remaining, we made a final pass down the island in the shallow zones where one would normally expect to find mabey a few wahoo, but more likely big balls of what we call rudderfish (chubs) and triggerfish. There we found what we were looking for. At this point our huge bait capacity really became evident as it was time to clear out the final forty or fifty scoops in our tanks still remaining after eight days of incredible fishing. I can honestly speculate, based purely on observation, that there were no survivors as the ocean erupted in all directions around Royal Star out as far as several hundred yards. The incredible sight of hundreds of yellowfin tuna, all one hundred pounds and much larger, flying out of the water in spectacular leaps gouging cavernous pits in the ocean surface while slurping down thousands of doomed sardines was, incredibly enough, augmented by the possibly even more amazing sight of hundreds of big yellowfin laying under the bow of Royal Star rising like giant goldfish in a tank at feeding time to lap up hooked sardines as calm as people going about their business on any given day. Needless to say we got the final seven tags out and finished up the fishing portion of the voyage on the higest note imaginable. In fact, more than fifteen hours have passed since we departed and I am still energized from such a fitting end to a genuinely remarkable fishing trip.

Now begins the final travel portion of the voyage that end's tomorrow for most anglers in Cabo San Lucas. They will be taking the express route home while the crew and I will be cruising the boat up the line along with a couple of hearty souls and tuna commission scientists Kurt Schaefer and Danny Fuller. We all have plenty of work to do and I'm certain I can conjure up a few more thoughts to write about so look for our daily reports to continue through our San Diego arrival on the 28th.