Dec. 1 2003
Good evening folks Not much to report today. We have nice weather with calm seas. We did get some more squid last night. We are stocked up pretty good now. We will be at the Bank in the morning. Hopefully we have a good report then. Andy Cates

Dec. 2 2003
Good evening folks. We arrived at the Hurricane Bank this morning at 600. We got the anchor down and were attacked by the wahoo. We remained on the anchor in hopes of getting a few kite fish and give it a good check
for better grade tuna. Our first tuna over 150 pounds won the daily Jack Pot . Pete Wight took the honors and got a custom wrapped Seeker or GrafiteUSA rod for free. Gerry  Miller came up with another nice fish but that was after the fact.
The morning showed the better size fish but the afternoon was really a show on the 70 to 100 pound fish. They were biting every bait that hit the water. The kite was impossible to keep up with. Right when we thought we weren't going to see the better size fish we got a hit into the dark. Even a couple of kite fish in the black of
night. I posted a group shot in the end and another shot Joshua Hwang with a nice fish. Nothing over 200 for the day, but hopefully tomorrow.
We ended the day with 50 wahoo and 67 tuna, 25 of which were 100 pounds or better and biggest fish about 180 . I also put in a shot of Bill Wirth with a nice late night fish. By the way ,Ernie everyone says hi. We will report again tomorrow. Andy Cates
 

Dec. 3 2003
Good evening folks. We had another good day out at the bank. A little slower on the wahoo but the tuna fishing was still good. We were very select in what we put on the boat today. We released quite a few fish and kept the fish around a hundred pounds and over. Bill Wirth won the daily jack pot today with the first 180 pound fish on the deck. The contest was over early and Bill walked away with a custom wrapped rod. Bill from Rod and Reel radio picked off a decent fish this morning as well as some of the other guys I have posted. Mike Yamamoto had a nice day and Archie Harrison got a nice one this afternoon. We finished with a group photo after a hit on some decent size fish in the evening. Fishing the last 2 days has been very good. The only thing lacking are fish over 200 pounds. It doesn't seem like there are many on the bank, we sure aren't getting
chances at them. Any how another day out here and we would almost be full.

A report from inside has made us make a move. As hard as it is to leave the fishing we have had I think we will see even better ahead. One of the other boats in our group had a number of fish over 200 pounds and one
right at 300 pounds today. We will be in that area day after tomorrow to hopefully top off with some big ones.
We will be traveling tomorrow We will report then,  Andy Cates
 

Dec. 4 2003
Good evening folks. We had a nice day of travel. Checked out a few different spots of birds and porpoise for nothing and that was about it. We are going to be in Mag Bay tomorrow night and try for mackerel. We did another seminar today on fishing the inner banks and porpoise and got rigged up for the mackerel. It still sounds promising inside with a couple of 200 pound fish caught, we are hoping that it holds up.

Dec. 5 2003
Good evening folks. Not much to report. We will be at the bait grounds tonight and then finally fishing tomorrow. Things still sound good with more 200 pound fish caught today, hopefully it lasts. We will report again tomorrow. Andy Cates

Dec. 6 2003
Good evening folks. We made it to the fishing grounds at 9:30 in the morning. Bait fishing was poor with the full moon but we got some to use. We only got a couple of stops here today that wanted to bite. Although
what did bite was nice fish Pete Wight won the daily jack pot with the first 200 pound fish. Unfortunately it was the only one. Gerry and Joshua also picked up a couple of nicer fish as well. Hope to do better tomorrow after getting a taste of things today. We will report again tomorrow, Andy Cates
 

Dec. 7 2003
Good evening folks We started the morning off on the anchor. We scratched  some nice fish up to 180 pounds and then went off looking for porpoise. We hit various spots throughout the day and ended up with a very nice day. We had some chances on fish over 200 today but did not prevail. We did have about a dozen fish in the 180 class and a couple bigger but nothing over 200. All the other fish today were nice as well averaging 140 to 160 with 26 fish for the day.
Tonight we are going for bait and then fishing offshore. I put up some pictures of some of the guys with some of the nicer fish. We will report again tomorrow
Andy Cates
 

Dec. 8  2003
Good evening folks. We got bait last night but it was tough. We are on our way back for more to finish with  tomorrow. We had a slow morning and then hit a few schools in the afternoon. We ran into some nice schools of big fish today. Our biggest fish today was caught by Vadim Gurvits 220 pounds but he was not the first. Chet Mondor won the daily Jack Pot with the first fish of the day over 200 pounds, a custom wrapped Seeker  or Grafite USA.
We are going to fish this area again tomorrow. We only have room for a couple more big fish so hopefully we get a chance tomorrow. We will report again tomorrow
Andy Cates

Dec. 10 2003
Good evening folks. We finished the day off with a bang. Second fish of the morning caught by Mike Yamamoto won the daily Jackpot with the first fish over 200. Not until 4:00 did we get the stop we were after. With 8 cows going on the bow into the dark, we had our work cut out. After the dust settled we ended up with 8 fish and released a few. Out of that hit we had a 209, 218 195,230,240 , 236 ,255 and the 205 from earlier. What a great way to end the trip. I posted a group picture with Joshua Hwang, Ben Kita , Bill Wirth, Pete Wight, Don Fujiu, and Richard Rose all with cows out of the evening bite.

We will be in Cabo tomorrow dropping off the people . The weather is nice and sounds like it will sustain. We will report again tomorrow, Andy Cates

Dec. 12 2003

Good morning folks. Yesterday was a decent day of travel. The weather was nice for most of the day. Some of the guys did work on their reels and others just relaxed and watched T.V and movies. Last night it got uncomfortable we were going slow through the big swell and wind but still a lot of jumping around. We are in the lee of Cedros right now and it is calm for the time being. We will give another report tomorrow. Andy Cates

Dec. 13, 2003

FROM:  RED ROOSTER III          

               LEE PALM SPORTFISHERS

               SAN DIEGO, CA.

CAPTAIN:                   ANDY CATES

DATE OF TRIP:   FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28 TO SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2003

LENGTH OF TRIP:    15 DAYS

PASSENGERS:           16

AREA FISHED:          HURRICANE BANK AND CABO AREA

FISH COUNT:               157 YELLOW FIN TUNA – 13 OVER 200 LBS,  80 WAHOO

 1^ST. PLACE JACKPOT:          249 LB YELLOW FIN TUNA caught by: DON FUJI OF GLENDALE, Az

 

2^ND   PLACE JACKPOT:            232.1 LB YELLOW FIN caught by: JOSHUA HWANG OF HACIENDA HEIGHTS, CA

 

3^RD PLACE JACKPOT:            225.8 LB YELLOWFIN caught by:RICH ROSE OF MANHATTAN BEACH, CA

 Also with fish over 200 lbs.: Rich Rose   206.5 lbs, Vadim Guruits  225.6 lbs,  Pete Wight 224.1 lbs, Pete Wight 203.1, Ben Kita   220.1, Ben Kita   201.2 lbs, Chet Mondor 214.6 lbs, Bill Wirth  212.2 lbs , Mike Yamamoto  205.7 lbs, and Gerry Miller   205.5 lbs

 

REMARKS:  This could be some of the best fishing ever for long range boats. The trip started at Hurricane Bank and moved inside to the Cabo San Lucas area.  The catches are spectacular, with the best chance of getting a trophy size fish.   With 13 fish over 200 pounds and a number of fish from 170 to 190 lbs, everyone brought home the quality they were hoping for.   For some more than they imagined.   We are hoping to see this quality of fish well into 2004.  If you are thinking about a long range trip now is the time.  Hope to see you out fishing with us.

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Dec. 27, 2003
Good evening folks. Well , so far its been all about keeping warm. We are traveling today getting rigged up for Alijos Rocks. We are going to start in the morning and deal with what seems to be the unavoidable wind. Most of the day we had 20 knots with a large swell and wind chop. Hopefully it is tolerable tomorrow on the anchor. The forecast doesn't sound to good for the next few days which makes the offshore seen sound pretty tough. We will report again tomorrow, Andy Cates

Dec. 28, 2003
Good evening folks. We are on the move again . The weather today was awful, we spent most of the day on the anchor and left the Rocks at 200 in the afternoon. We landed one nice size tuna and released a few smaller ones. Also a few yellowtail for our efforts. I posted a picture of our standout fish of the day caught by Mark Kazmac.
Tomorrow we will be fishing offshore looking for schools of tuna. There will be three of our boats in the area, hopefully between us we come up with something good. We will report again tomorrow.

Dec. 29, 2003
Good evening folks. Last nights ride took a heavy toll on our bait. We never found what we were looking for today. There was some fish caught in the 30 to 40 pound range but nothing much bigger. Our dying or dead sardines made it very hard to fish and definitely hindered our performance. We will be in Mag Bay tonight looking to fill both wells and two boxes. I hope it works out. We will report again tomorrow, Andy Cates

Dec. 30, 2003
Good evening folks. We started on the Potato Bank this morning. We looked around there for most of the morning. The only thing we saw was a one spot of big fish that would not bite. They hung around the boat for as long as we drifted but no takers. We looked offshore all day for nothing. We got on a spot late and had a
go-around on 100 pound class fish . We hooked a dozen right off the bat and ended with seven fish. We are going to fish in this area tomorrow in hopes of more quality. I posted some pictures of some of the guys and also Tyler with the biggest fish around 125 pounds. We really need a big day tomorrow . Things have been very tough for us so far. We will report again tomorrow, Andy Cates
 

Dec. 31, 2003
Good evening folks, We needed a good day and we got it. We had great fishing on 25 to 70 pound fish. A couple of long drifts with classic offshore yellowfin tuna fishing. The weather was great and everyone had a great time. Wide open fishing using the heavy gear with the mackerel really made it fun. We are going in to make more bait and then finish off on the upper end of the ridge. We will report again tomorrow, Andy Cates