Anyone who has ever fished along the Pacific coast in a skiff knows the feeling. You're close to the water and each swell rolls under the boat close enough to touch. If you're up tight to the beach, then one eye has to be kept peeled out towards sea. You're close to nature and that inevitably means you're vulnerable. Now add a 300-pound-plus tuna with instincts more like a yellowtail or seabass to the equation and you'll start to imagine what it was like for Dennis Braid on his trip aboard the Excel. Braid will, of course, be at the Fred Hall Show in Long Beach, as will representatives of all the long range boats and the rod, reel and tackle suppliers who specialize in long range fishing. For me, they are the highlight of both the Long Beach and Del Mar shows. This is the best chance to learn about this kind of fishing, and there really is nothing like it, short of getting on a boat. Braid rides the long range boats a lot, and he is in a position to fish anywhere in the world he wants. He has already fished in most of the best spots, but it's tuna like his 328.5-pound yellowfin - "probably one of the most exciting fish I've ever caught" - that put long ranging at the top of his list. One of the hardest things to learn about long ranging is pace. You can literally fish 24 hours a day, which leads to the ultimate crash and burn. You have to choose the right times to fish and the right time to sleep. "There was no special time, no early bite on our trip, you just had to pick your right time," said Braid. "Some people lost out on big fish because they got up at 2 a.m. and then took a nap in the middle of the day. I would get up at 7, catch a couple fish, look around." So it was about 1 p.m. when the second call for lunch was made, and Braid picked up his 80-pound outfit after catching three tuna on a 60-pound setup. "I was walking toward the rail when I decided the line felt bad and it was time for a change, so I grabbed the 80 and pinned on a cabbie (caballito)," said Braid. "When I walked away the rail was full, but when I came back they were all around the corner and I was the only one in the corner." Braid made a pendulum cast with the butt-hooked bait and in four seconds he was bit. "It was like a manta ray, make a slow gradual run that took three-fourths of a spool," said Braid. "I just followed it to the bow, got back half the line and then took it all back." Skipper Randy Toussaint was right there, of course, and when the movement of the rod tip indicated the tail beat of a big tuna, he ordered the skiff launched. "The skiff was in the water in a minute and a half," said Braid. "Just like that I was in the skiff with John Peterson as a deckhand." A word needs to be said here about Braid's gear. The reel was a Shimano 30/50 Beastmaster and the rod was from a custom CalStar blank Braid worked with Leon Todd to design. A modified Boomer, the rod was only 5 feet long. "I designed it for maximum leverage," said Braid. "And the short rod makes it easier to climb in a skiff and still be IFGA (not hand off the rod) - just back off the drag and jump in." Braid jumped in for the ride of his life. The Excel was at the Lunker Hole at San Bendicto and the fish ran in straight for the beach. One reason so many big fish are caught at the Lunker Hole is it is actually an underwater crater, a dish that fills up with bait. At the top edge of the dish there is a world class surf break and it was pumping with about a 10-foot swell. "There's a bunch of rocks where the swells come through, we were right next to them in 40 feet of water and you could see shells on the bottom," said Braid. "It looked like he was going to go through two of the rocks, but then he headed us and drug the line over a rock and went inside farther to 10 feet of water and we were in 20 feet. John said 'watch the fish, I'll watch the swells and I thought for sure the fish was going to be up on the pebbles on the beach. It was right in the surf line." Meanwhile, skipper Toussaint was "like a chicken with his head cut off, trying to keep an eye on us with the binoculars," Braid learned later. "We kept disappearing behind the swells." Instead of going up on the beach, the tuna (they had positively identified it when it came up to surface just after leaving the big boat) headed straight out to sea. "We ran down on him and it came up thrashing close enough for the gaff, then made a 90-degree turn right in front of the boat, bolted straight down and pulled the bow of the boat right under the water before heading into the beach again," said Braid. "It was almost out of sight of the boat in the waves, then it made another shot for the ocean." Finally they were able to get up right beside the fish, but every time they got close enough to stick the fish, two tail beats took it out of range. "John said, 'What do you want to do?' and I said jet ahead of him and I'll work him up," said Braid. "That worked and John put the flying gaff in him, I grabbed the rope and John got a half hitch around the tail. I'm hanging on and we're taking water in the swells and trying to get back to the main boat. We got within 130 yards and the fish had revived, the gaff's pulled and he's trying to go, only 10 inches of the tail are out of the water. John's trying to lift the tail out and I'm trying (to) reach down and put another hook in. We finally got another hook in the belly and then did a quick dash to the big boat where they hit him with four bamboo gaffs, pulled him on deck and gave him a quick headache pill." The fish measured 6 1/2 feet long and taped out at 308, only to weigh pounds more at the certified Fisherman's Landing scale. The Shimano Beastmaster reel tested at 32 pounds of drag at full, and Braid had put it through its paces. "I change gears like going around a race track," said Braid. "I'm backwards and forwards on the drag lever too." You can ask Braid yourself why it's necessary to shift often and adjust your drag on a big tuna.