RESULTS OF THE 2004 LOS CABOS BILLFISH TOURNAMENT

Oct. 15-21, 2004, Nancy Chaloner and Tracy Ehrenberg, Pisces Fleet, Cabo San Lucas tournament fishing, Baja California Sur, Mexico:

We have just ended the busiest and most exciting week on the Cabo San Lucas fishing calendar--tournament week.

The Los Cabos Billfish Tournament was sponsored by the Los Cabos Hotel Association and operated by Marlin Magazine. The number of entries was very respectable at 64 teams. The largest fish was caught on the first day of the event and was a 379-pound blue marlin 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 Cabo San Lucas to weigh their fish, as they knew that if they waited until the end of the day valuable 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:

First Place: Big Brother, $121,425, 379-pound blue marlin.

Second Place : Karma , $381,883, 375-pound blue marlin.

Third Place : On-Site, $13,712, 366-pound blue marlin.

Our very own boat "Ni Modo" took top honors for over all releases, with Gil Roberts team from New Jersey, they also landed the biggest dorado, 48.7 pounds, giving their team total winnings of $38,275.

The tuna division was won by Tres Juanes with a 98.7-pound fish earning them $10,850, and the largest wahoo was taken by Juanita, 32.30 pounds, also netting them $10,850.

Next up on the Cabo San Lucas fishing 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 pounds and won $78,000.

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 Cabo San Lucas' Puerto Paraiso Mall.

A total of 171 boats entered, with teams from U.S., Mexico, Costa Rica, El Salvador, U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Nicaragua, Spain and Sweden.

The first day of the tournament saw a huge fish come to the Cabo San Lucas dock, weighing a hefty 645 pounds, a black marlin, which took a 10-pound yellowfin tuna bait at the Gordo Banks and happened to have the 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, and fished aboard her own vessel "Retriever," a 61-foot 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-pound 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 for the largest fish on day two.

Going into day three, team Retriever was 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 unnoticed, team Reel Pain II backed up with another fish, this time 418 pounds. Both of their fish were taken on a blue Marlin Magic lure. Most people don't know that the point system in this Cabo San Lucas fishing tournament is not largest-fish-takes-all, but rather an accumulative system.

So, with the weight of these two fish added together, the total for this team was 866 pounds, bumping Martha out of first place. This was the first time team "Reel Pain II" had fished the Bisbee's. The vessel, an 82-foot Hatteras was skippered by a native of Hawaii, Ryan Haslam, who lives in San Diego and had previously run long range boats, such as the Red Rooster and Royal Solaris.

At the end of the event 63 blue marlin had been caught, with those under the 300-pound minimum released; 56 striped marlin were released as well as nine sailfish.

Final standings:

First Place: Reel Pain II, $1,126,510, two blue marlin, 448 and 418 pounds.

Second Place: Retriever, $724,330, black marlin, 645 pounds.

Third Place: Teamwork, $25,500, blue marlin, 374 pounds.

Fourth Place: Sleek Cat II, $15,300, blue marlin, 372 pounds.

Fifth Place: Country King, $10,200, blue marlin, 354 pounds.

Release Category:

First Place: Daddy Rabbit, $77,513, two blue marlin, two striped marlin.

Second Place: El Lobo, $26,831.

Third Place: Predator II, $14,906.

As usual there were a lot of interesting stories of huge fish that got away; the third 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 won this Cabo San Lucas fishing tournament, rather than one large fish. All in all, the consensus was a good event this year.