July 20, 2004, Julio Meza, San Quintin fishing, Baja California, Mexico:

We had 203 anglers fishing the tournament, 94 Mexicans from Tijuana, Rosarito, Tecate, Ensenada, San Felipe and San Quintin, and 109 from USA. I am very surprised by the big number of Mexicans. They are not used to getting involved with this kind of event.

We registered 67 boats. Almost every working San Quintin fishing boat available got wet that day. On Friday, July 16, we had the captains' meeting where we presented the rules to fish and the safe way to get out of Bahia de San Quintin. The next day, with all the issues reviewed, we were ready.

About 25 boats stayed overnight anchored or tied up at the Old Mill. The rest touched the water very early. The salida was at 5:30 a.m. With just a little light, the boats made a nice white line to follow out the channel, all kinds of sizes and shapes of boats, the smallest a 12-foot aluminum Baja boat with 25 horsepower. This guy landed solo the biggest white seabass, weighing 19 pounds.

The judges were officials from the Sagarpa fishing commission. They were checking gills, eyes, and cutting the fish. They did a good job, and 47 dorado, 149 yellowtail, 7 white seabass were weighed in total.

The day was beautiful, 94 degrees, sunny, and the water was nice. The offshore water temp up to 72, clear blue. Several striped marlin were spotted during the day and one lost by me when we saw it and dropped a small yellowtail as bait. All the San Quintin fishing guides were on the water sharing information on the tournament channel during the whole day. A few batteries died and a few radios melted.

A few San Quintin fishing boats stayed inshore looking for white seabass and almost every boat saw them cruising under the boat but they where not taking any offers. Some others fished the San Quintin high spots like the 240, 15, 6 and Ben's Rock, but they just found small forkies. Some others fished around the island, but the trollers landed little that way. The rest fished offshore for tuna, but they were not active. Most of the boats landed dorado up to 22 pounds and yellowtail up to 22 pounds on the kelp paddies.

The winning San Quintin fishing boats landed albacore and yellowfin tuna while trolling CD14 Rapalas 29 miles off La Punta. In that same area several dorado were caught and a few marlins were spotted.

Photo courtesy Stan Vath.

Winners, First San Quintin Sport Fishing Tournament:

First Place: Lalo Arzate, 39.4-pound Albacore. Second Place: Javier Bernal, 37.5-pound yellowfin tuna. Third Place: Dave Brown, 34.4-pound yellowfin tuna.

The prizes: $5,500, $3,000 and $1,500 in Shimano and Lowrance tackle, and big trophies.

We had a lot of prizes to raffle. The best was a fishing trip to Buena Vista Beach Resort at East Cape, courtesy of Axel Valdez, for 2 persons, 3 nights, 4 days, a fishing day on a 29-foot twin engine sport cruiser. We also raffled 7 local fishing packages for 3 and 4 anglers with 2 nights, dinners and a fishing day courtesy of Pedro's Pangas, El Capitan Sportfishing, Don Eddie's Landing, Tito's pangas, and Jaime Sportfishing. San Quintin accommodations at the Old mill Hotel, Hotel Real del Cora, Hotel Chavez, and Hotel Maria Celeste, and dinners at Restaurant Jardines de Baja and Old Mill restaurant. We also raffled sonars from Sea Witch Marine, gift certificates from SQC corp, and cellular phones, GPSs, rods, reels, tackle bags, marine radios, and many more prizes.

The TECATE girls in tiny bikinis dancing on the sand, the Miss Expo Fair girls showed up, and the local TV and newspapers covered the event.

The San Quintin ramp was two-thirds fixed with income from the tournament and the last part was paid by the bay businesses, and is going to be ready on the next low tides. We will be able to put three boats in the water at the same time.

Every angler received a tee shirt, a hat, a lunch ticket, free drinks and fishing lures from Luhr Jensen and Fish Trap.

The priest of the church blessed the club and the event in a nice ceremony.

Over 600 people attended the awards ceremony, everybody was happy, and all the sponsors mentioned they are ready for the next San Quintin event in September.

The next San Quintin event we were thinking of is on Sept 25, 2004, with $40,000 worth of prizes, including maybe a boat. All the sponsors are pushing now and lots more sponsors showed up during the tournament. The government came to us asking for more events like this and now they are ready to got involved and sponsor the next events. The army, navy and local police helped us, taking care of all the details during the party and while fishing.

Photo courtesy Stan Vath.