First I gotta give Rob W. (Aloharob) a huge thanks for inviting Rob E. and myself to fish the Bisbee's, as well as John (Afishinado) for the use of his boat and skippering skills.
I'm sure a number of you remember John King's 'Capture the Flag' tourney last August where the winner would get an a spot on John's team to fish the Bisbee Black and Blue tourney in Cabo San Lucas. Well, long story short... Rob W. at some point during John's capture the flag tourney decided he wanted to go come hell or high water and he bought into the Bisbee team..... well, as luck would have it... he ended up winning the top prize on John's tourney and he won the other half of the boat... :-)
I wasn't even half way through the congratulations when Aloharob offered up an invite to Rob E. and myself to fish the Bisbee tourney with him and faster than a speeding bullet... Rob E. and myself bit that invite quicker than you can say 'Hell Yeh!'.
Cabo???? Did he just say Cabo???
I love fishing Cabo....
While we've all fished in Cabo before, aside from John King, none of us had fished the Bisbee's. Considering it's often referred to as the Superbowl of Fishing Tourney's, it's something we have all considered, but never got around to it or found the opportunity. Arranging a crew and a boat during this tourney can be very difficult, not to mention expensive...
After several months of anticipation and preparation, the day finally arrived to head down south. We arrived into Los Cabo last Tuesday and were meet by John King at the airport. John has a great set-up in Cabo San Lucas and has a nice Condo located one block from the Marina and his tourney rigged Bertram 35.
I borrowed a 4-bedroom condo from a buddy of mine, which as luck would have it was just one block from John's place, which worked out fantastic.
As far as the Bisbee's goes, the whole experience was pretty amazing. Cabo San Lucas in general has gone beyond being an 'cheap' holiday destination and gazing across the harbor only drove that point home further as the marina was jammed pack with high end sportfishers that made 50' Bertram’s look small.
The point was driven even further home by the fact that this Bisbee's would set a record in tourney winnings.... over $3.3 million in cash for basically five lucky boats.
After settling in, we met over at John's place before the captain’s meeting and reviewed our strategy as well as what jackpots we were planning to enter. Of course, no matter what you plan for before leave for something like this, will change once you get there, so it wasn't too long before we saw ourselves entering into a few more jackpots than we originally planned.... awwwhhh, the lure of gambling.... :-)
After we hashed it out and reviewed the splits (always a good idea before you actually win something), I was given the task of bag man, which I think basically meant that I get blown away first as I wander around the event with pockets bulging with cash.... yes... it's all cash or travelers checks. How they avoid problems is beyond me as the tables at the daily jackpot sign in have had hundreds of thousands of dollars, as they were signing anglers in. Really an interesting sight.
After dinner, our plans were to hit the sack and get some shut eye prior to the tourney... good idea... as things looked like they could get wild if you ventured a few streets over. :-)
We left the docks early the following morning and headed out to make bait, which turned out to be a familiar routine. Pay the pangas $60 for a few half hearted scoops of mini sardines and head for the arches to chum up skippies and Yellowtail for the tubes. We did pretty good filling the tubes all three days, but day's two and three we had a harder time keeping the bait alive, which turned out to be an flow adjustment problem we discovered after the tourney. In general these tubes need a good flow of water to keep the tuna alive, which should work out to be about a 1/2 horse pump for every two tubes.
Bait was made in fairly short order and with lines out @ 7:45am, everyone headed over to line up for the shotgun start.
This was something else that was pretty amazing. This year’s tourney consisted of 182 boats and most of them were well over 40'. Lining up this many boats between two committee boats and then firing a shotgun set off an amazing reaction... first was a distinct haze as 364 diesel engines responded to the hammered throttles... the second was the bathtub / washing machine that if you're not in front of... I don't care how big you are.... you're going to get tossed...
The pictures I took just didn't do this shot gun start justice... but it was amazing... and you could see that John loved this stuff too because as soon as he could, he was showing us how fast his little Bert could scoot... and scoot it did!!
The plan this morning was to run out to the numbers that had worked for John during his prefishing efforts. He flew into Cabo earlier in the month so he had several weeks on the water and was feeling pretty good about where the fish were. We decided pretty early on to try slow trolling big baits for the bigger marlin as a qualifying fish needed to be over 300#.
It was agreed early on that Rob W. would be the angler, Rob E. would work the pit and the gaffs and I'd work the bridge (back-up for John, spot, and log info and pics). Having busted my knee up a week before the trip, I wasn't going to be much good in the pit, much less being very mobile.
As we're headed out to the numbers, the radio calls start coming in. Lot's of radio chatter and lot's of stripers hitting lures. Reports of a few blues (the right kind) start coming in, but all are released, being non-qualifiers. We approach the numbers and drop in some lures and soon, we hear the Pez Espada is boating a fish... which means it must be a qualifier... damn, that was quick. They plan to be at the weigh station before noon.....
Not to be left behind..., the stinger goes off and Rob W. snaps to action...
Rob W. grabs the rod, get's in the chair, buckles up... and he's on!!!
We soon see a few splashes and aerobatics and the fish is the right kind... a blue..., but not a qualifier....
Rob W. makes pretty quick work of the fish and she serves as a nice drill as everyone goes through the paces flawlessly and a nice Blue is released for another day.
After this, we decide to pull in the jigs and troll live bait as we're in the zone..... Not long after we have the bait out, we're shadowed by a group of 20-25# Mahi Mahi's. We watch them crash the Scud's for a while and finally decide to drop back a live sardine and pick them out of the spread while moving as we start to get concerned they might start harassing the bigger baits...
Well, pest removal was never so fun.... :-)
Rob W. quickly volunteered for the task and quickly pins a mini-dine on a bait rod. Before you know it... he's on! Throughout the aerobics, Rob does a great job of keeping the fish out of the spread and soon the Dodo is brought to gaff...
And Rob W. is brought to grins....
Next it was Rob E's chance in the batter's box... so after he was done batting the Rob W's fish....
He went out and got his own.....
Unfortunately, while the day started out pretty good, the action dwindled off after this and we pretty much wrapped day one up with some nice dodo filets and some drill work prepping for the big one to come, which we hoped would be manana.
In the meantime, the first fish boated of the day was weighed in.... and weighed in at 531 pounds... extremely nice as the fish took the jackpot of the day and eventually the tourney for a grand total of.... $1,348,440
For us.... we just couldn't find that right fish for the remainder of the tourney. It certainly wasn't for lack of trying and overall, I was pretty impressed with how few fish were actually taken or killed in this tourney. Overall, I believe over 304 fish were hooked and just 8 fish were taken in to the weigh scales. While there were a few that were obviously under 300#'s, most of them were close and four qualified for the money.
We went on to fish for two more days and while we had some knockdowns and could have been contenders.... it just didn't happen for us. The experience however was great and both Rob E. and Rob W. got into the right kind...., just not qualifiers we could take to the bank...
But then again.... money wasn't the reason behind the trip anyway.... We all learned a lot during this tourney. Watching John and his crew rig and run his boat and observing the whole Bisbee's experience was worth the price of admission as we'd all like to run our boats down there and fish this tourney. And while we didn't get a winner off this tournament, I do feel that we did accomplish one of the goals that were laid out at the beginning of the trip..... regardless of how we did, we hoped to end the trip being closer friends than when we started the trip..... and that goal I think was accomplished hands down....
And...... Next year.... we'll be back!!!
Rob W.,
Thanks again for the invite!! It was a hell of an experiance and BTW... Happy Birthday again you dog!!!
John K. Thanks to you and your crew as well. Javi, Carlos and your hospitality were awesome!!
Cheers, Bill
Oh, for those of you wondering what the hell I meant by saying we were one fish out of the money?????
Well, we were..... they paid prizes up to fifth place and only 4 fish qualified...., so looking at it that way..... we were just one fish out of the money.... (along with 178 other boats... :-) :-) ).
Cheers again and thanks for sticking with me thoughout this long post.... :-)
“If your not part of the solution... you're part of the problem"
Linear Mode
