FLORIDA ANGLERS COMPETE IN EAST CAPE, MEXICO FISHING TOURNAMENT

May 31, 2005, Tony Tringali, East Cape, Baja California Sur fishing trip, Mexico:

We made the trip this last week from South Florida to the East Cape and stayed at the wonderful Hotel Buena Vista Beach Resort, the jewel of the East Cape. We were there fishing the 4th Annual Veal Invitational private fishing tournament.

It is a private tournament that has been growing every year. Tom and Kevin Veal, Huntington Beach, Calif., our gracious hosts, have organized a great group of guys that come together at the end of each May to fish at the East Cape. The main group is from Southern California. I'm a part of the South Florida contingency. People travel as far as from South Carolina to participate. We have cash prizes, and this year the winning team also received a free four day trip back to Buena Vista Beach Resort, compliments of Axel Valdez and his great staff. I really can't say enough about Axel's staff. They are very courteous and pay close attention to detail. I highly recommend Hotel Buena Vista Beach Resort to anyone who has never been there.

The fishing at East Cape overall was slower this year. We didn't see any dorado of size and the tuna where much smaller than last year, in the 5-15 pound range, where last year they were 15-25 pounds in size.

The tuna were caught about 40-50 miles offshore. The Striped Marlin were thick but were finicky at best.

On Saturday, we traveled north from the resort and saw 4 marlin and boated two.

On Sunday, we ran 35 miles south and saw 20 fish, baited each one of them, but could not get bit to save our lives. Live bait on Saturday was a combination of mullet and bonefish.

On Sunday, live bait only consisted of bonefish, and the marlin were just not interested.

East Cape fishing is about a week from going off. We were on the back side of a full moon so I am guessing the fish have been feeding all night and were full when we were pitching baits to them.

I truly believe, if we had mackerel, we would have been hooked up all day. Joe Cardenas of Boynton Beach, Fla., caught a striper on Saturday with Victor on the Vamanos. The fish charged a live mullet three times before finally taking it. Air temperatures at East Cape were in the mid 90's. Water temperatures if I had to guess were low to mid 70's.

Others in our fishing party did catch some roosterfish. A swordfish was seen on Tom Veal's boat but not hooked after it stalked a bait three different times. The funny thing is, they were fishing roosterfish when the swordfish crashed their spread about three hundred yards off the beach.