Len Cunningham and Yoshi Yamamoto.

Yoshi Yamamoto of San Diego owns Yoshino???s Restaurant at Washington and India Streets. He won third place for a 259-pound yellowfin tuna.

???My best fish ever,??? said Yoshi ???very heavy.???

George Davis made his eighth (his estimate) annual charter with Tommy Rothery aboard the Polaris Supreme, and met the boat when it returned to Fisherman???s Landing January 13 after an 18-day excursion. It was Friday, but definitely not a bad luck day or trip, as chartermaster George bagged a 257-pound tuna for himself as the boat fished off southern Baja.

???Everybody got a cow,??? said Tommy, ???and we released over 100 tuna. We ended up with 27 tuna over 200 pounds.???

The day???s big winner was Tom Hilton of San Clemente who scored a 293-pound whopper yellowfin.

Hilton said he got the big tuna ????Ķin 25 minutes; my best fish ever. My biggest before was 178 pounds.

A put-together trip with 30 anglers to Baja???s southern banks returned with 20 tuna over 200 pounds.

The super cow, a 320.2-pound yellowfin caught by Rick Newton of San Diego, won first place. Rick said he fished a sardine on a 9/0 Eagle Claw hook, with 100-pound Izorline and 130-pound Power Pro Spectra on an Avet 50 reel and a Seeker 6463 XXH rod.

Paul Marquez of Lakeside bagged a 292.6-pound tuna that was ineligible because it was kite-hooked. He said he fished a sardine on a 7/0 Eagle Claw hook, with 130-pound Big Game line and 130-pound Spectra backing on an Accurate 50 reel and a Calstar 6460 XXH rod.

Tammy Holden of Long Beach got a 229.4-pounder in only 20 minutes after the tuna took a mackerel on an unknown hook. She said she fished with 130-pound Maxima line and 130-pound Spectra backing on a Penn 50 SW reel and a Penn five and a half-foot rod.

Nanette Smith of Huntington Beach took a 213-pound tuna with a sardine on a 7/0 ringed Super Mutu hook. She fished 130-pound Maxima line and 130-pound Spectra backing on an Accurate 50W reel and a Seeker 6364 XXH rod.

Frank LoPreste brought the Taka Tanaka (Taka???s Bait & Tackle) 16-day Royal Polaris charter home to Fisherman???s Landing January 18 with a new boat record of 72 tuna over 200 pounds. That record is the third in three trips to the southern banks this winter, with the prior mark being 69 cows brought home by Roy Rose December 23.

At the dock, Gary Ah Sing of Gardena won first place for the largest tuna, a 283-pounder.
???He came up tail-wrapped,??? said Gary. ???He bit on the slide when we metered some fish.???

Bill Gilpin of Camano Island, WA was second, for a 278-pound tuna. He also had a 269-pounder. Gilpin???s best previous fish was about 70 pounds.

Calvin Fujimoto of Burbank was third, for a 276-pound yellowfin. ???It was a gentle bite,??? remembered Calvin, ???but then he took off like a rocket. The last 20 feet was the hardest. The fish bit about mid-morning.???

Meeting the RP was Jack Nilsen of Accurate, who put a couple of long aluminum gaffs aboard the rig. Gaff bamboo is very scarce, said Jack.

Andy Cates had 23 anglers aboard Red Rooster III for a 15-day trip, and he obliged all but three of them with a cow, a cow tuna of over 200 pounds. Eleven anglers had never caught a cow before, so it was a happy crowd at H&M Landing and Lee Palm Sportfishers January 19 when Cates docked the rig with a total of 59 tuna over the 200-pound mark, a new boat record.

The best tuna was a 292-pound yellowfin caught be Emerald Argonza of Montclair, after a two-hour battle.

1st place: a 292-pound yellowfin caught by Emerald Argonza of Montclair.

Fred Knilans of Tustin won second place for a 284-pound tuna.

Dennis Rogers of Newport only needed a half-hour to boat his third-place 282-pounder

Bob Michener of Oxnard, a Rooster regular, brought his daughter Susan on the trip and both got big tuna

The jackpot winners:

1st place: Greg Stoney, Ventura, 277 pounds.
2nd place: Lloyd Voorhees of Fallbrook, 265lbs (not pictured).
3rd place: Dan Shubin of Rowland Heights, 260 pounds. (With a little help from his son, Kyle.)

Ron Moy, an LA motorcycle patrolman from Mission Viejo, won first place for the biggest tuna, a 292-pound fattie that worked Moy over for an hour and 45 minutes.

???I got this one on the second day,??? said Moy, who also had a 202-pounder, ???and he stayed up on the surface for a half-hour with his sickle fin out. He bit about ten feet off the stern. He stayed way out there, and took me around the boat five times.???