Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

Capt. Tracy Ehrenberg
October 24, 2004
Cabo San Lucas - Saltwater Fishing Report

OCT. 15TH TO 21ST, 2004 (Tournament Report) BILLFISH: We have just ended the busiest and most exciting week on the Cabo fishing calendar – tournament week. First up was the Los Cabos Billfish Tournament, an event sponsored by the Los Cabos Hotel Association and operated by Marlin Magazine. The amount of entries was very respectable at 64 teams. The largest fish was caught on the first day of the event and was a 379 lb blue caught aboard “Big Brother” by local angler Arturo Rivera. The fish took an orange and black lure just outside of Punta Gorda at 11.39 am and took an hour to boat. This savvy team raced in to weigh their fish, as they knew that if they waited until the end of the day valuble pounds which translate into points would be lost. Team Big Brother suffered through two nail-biting days, to see if they would be lodged from the first place spot, but it was not to be, they were able to maintain their lead. They did take first place but not the lion’s share of the dollars, as they were not entered in all the jackpots. This is how it shaped up at the end of the three day event: 1st Place: Big Brother – total winnings $121,425.00 379 lb blue. 2nd Place : Karma – total winnings $381,883.34 375 lb blue. 3rd Place : On-Site - total winnings $13,712.50 366 lb blue As you can see it was a very close competition, with not much weight difference between the first three places. Our very own “Ni Modo” took top honors for over all releases, with Gil Roberts team from New Jersey, they also landed the biggest dorado (48.7 lbs) giving their team total winnings of $38,275.00. The tuna division was won by Tres Juanes with a 98.7 lb fish earning them $10,850.00 and the largest wahoo was taken by Juanita (32.30 lbs) also netting them $10,850.00. Next up on the calendar was the Bisbee Alumni, which many teams choose to pre-fish before the main event, namely the Bisbee Black and Blue. The top boat in this two day event, was “Felina” who’s captain is no stranger to success in tournaments. Tony Nungaray (as far as we know Tony has more winnings in local events than anybody else ). Felina’s fish was nice at 536 lbs and won $78,000.00. Now on to the main event of the season the Bisbee Black and Blue, this year was the 25th in the history of the tournament and as always much anticipated. The event started on the 22nd and was spread over three days, with the awards banquet held on Saturday night at the Puerto Paraiso Mall. A total of 171 boats entered with teams from USA, Mexico, Costa Rica, El Salvador, U.K, France, Germany, Italy, Nicaragua, Spain and Sweden – so yeah, there were a lot of funny accents at the awards banquet. The first day of the tournament saw a huge fish come to the dock, weighing a hefty 645 lbs – a black marlin, which took a 10 lb yellowfin tuna bait at the Gordo Banks and happened to have a bill of another fish stuck in it’s jaw. Interestingly the angler was a lady (and she is, in all senses of the word), Martha McNabb who lives at Los Barriles on the East Cape, fished aboard her own vessel “Retriever” a 61 ft Viking and did a great job in boating the fish in just 35 minutes (way to go Martha – show they guys how it’s done!). This caused mixed emotions, the first that there were big fish out there, the second, this was going to be a hard fish to beat. Several other qualifying fish were caught but none even came close to Martha’s fish. Second day out the largest fish to come to the scale was a 448 lb blue aboard “Reel Pain II” – caught by Russ McGregor from San Diego. This team was happy though, as like Martha, on the first day they were also entered in all the jackpot divisions and knew that at a minimum they had made $458,000.00 for the largest fish on day two. Going into to day three and team Retriever were still in first place and it looked like for the first time in the history of this event a lady angler would win. Fish came to the scale, but again nothing close to Martha’s monster. Almost unnoticied team Reel Pain II backed up with another fish this time 418 lbs. Both of their fish were taken on a blue Marlin Magic lure. Most people don’t know that the point system in this tournament, is not largest fish takes all, but rather an accumaltive system. So with the weight of these two fish added together, the total for this team was 866 lbs, bumping Martha out of first place. This was the first time team “Reel Pain II” had fished the Bisbee. The vessel, an 82 ft Hatteras was skippered by a native of Hawaii, Ryan Haslam, who lives in San Diego and had previously ran long range boats, such as the Red Rooster and Royal Solaris. At the end of the event 63 blue marlin and been caught, with those under the 300 lb minimum released, 56 striped marlin were released as well as 9 sailfish. These are the final standings: 1st Place: Reel Pain II – total winnings $1,126,510.00 Two blues 448 & 418 lbs. 2nd Place: Retriever – total winnings $724,330.00 black 645 lbs. 3rd Place: Teamwork – total winnings $25,500.00 blues 374 lbs 4th Place: Sleek Cat II – total winnings $15,300.00 blue 372 lbs. 5th Place: Country King – total winnings $10,200.00 blue 354 lbs. Release Category: 1st Place: Daddy Rabbit – total winnings $77,513.00 2 blues, 2 stripes. 2nd Place: El Lobo – total winnings $26,831.00 3rd Palce: Predator II – total winnings $14,906.00 As usual there were a lot of interesting stories of huge fish that got away; the 3rd place team told us that they were polygraphed twice and it was harder than catching the fish! This is the first time that two smaller fish win this event, rather than one large fish. All in all it the consenus was a good event this year.

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