As has happened for 27 years, last October the Bisbee’s Black & Blue Tournament 2007 was held in Los Cabos. Bisbee’s Black & Blue is the most important fishing tournament in the world, in which fishing boats from all over the world gather for a chance to win the prize of US$5 million, the biggest prize for tournament of this nature.
So, the competition began under a blazing sun and in perfect sea conditions with 166 teams from all corners of the world taking part, from Australia, Bermuda, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Tahiti, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Ukraine, Switzerland, Great Biritain and the USA, the latter with the highest number of fishermen.
The fishing could not have been better. With the calm sea and the ideal moonlight, hundreds of specimens were caught, which has not happened for many years in this competition. In fact, more than 200 large fish (more than 90%) were caught and returned to the sea. This without doubt raised all the crews’ spirits who, from very early through to sundown battled to catch the largest specimen, to meet the 300 lb minimum to quantify.
The team to catch the authentic “big fish”, a blue marlin weighing in at 620 lbs, was the Angel and the Badman II team, who took away a prize of US$ 734,415. The boat “Missing Link” the second place, with a catch of the same species weighing in at 520 lbs, to also catch the substantial amount of prize money of US$ 461,962. However, in monetary terms, the true winner, in third place in terms of weight were the Bad Company Wyoming Cowboys, with their 539-lb marlin, took home of the biggest prize in the history of the tournament, the amount of US$1, 421, 752.
In this competition, everything depends on which category of the day competitors registers in. The team that won third place in the general competition in terms of weight, the Bad Company Wyoming Cowboys team had enrolled in the jackpot category as the same turn in which they caught their example so luck on their side and they won an amount of money much higher than the team that actually won first place.
As an anecdote, this team consisted of an absolutely novice crew since it was the first time that they had ever taken part in an event of this nature. Even the well-known Los Cabos local, Captain Manuel Enrique Castelum, trained them days earlier using an old and curious local technique, which consisted of dragging a 19 liter bucket in the water as if it were a fish to simulate the conditions, Luck was not with our boat, the “Amura Outlaw Performance”, even though it was the first boat to hook a marlin. The team battled for a long time with the fish but eventually the line broke and the prey got away.
Text: Juan Manuel Orbea ± Photo: Carlos Andrade