No matter how you slice it the fishing during this years East Cape Bisbee was dismal. 62 boats fishing 3 long days and only managed to bring one qualifying blue marlin over 300 pounds to the scales. Until after lines out on the third day not even one short fish was weighed. That tells me not another fish even close to 300 pounds was brought to leader.
Dorado and tuna fishing was also poor. The largest dorado weighed was 47 pounds. On the second day a 33 pound dorado won the daily jack pot. I'm reading all the hoop da la about what a great tournement it was and scratching my head. Yes, I enjoy all the excitement of fishing a big tournament as much as the next guy. Part of that excitment was deflated by the lack of action. All that can be said is, that's fishing. The East Cape is a phenomenal fishery and hopefully will show more of what it has to offer at next years tournament.
On a bright note Buena Vista Beach Resort and the Valdez brothers were excellent hosts and did an outstanding job accomodating tournament participants and spectators.
I do want to make one more observation about the tournament before moving to other fishing action this week. It seems to me that there's an elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about. At last years tourney it was made clear that the use of circle hooks with bait would be mandatory this year. I'm not a fan of the circles and was reluctant. I do like the thrill of the competition so decided to enter the contest. As the rules of the tournament were explained at the captains meeting it was not clear what Wayne Bisbee was saying about the deployment of circle hooks. After a bunch of double talk I finally asked the question. "If we bring a dorado to the scale with a J hook hanging out of it's mouth will it be disqualified?" Waynes answer was, "No, you can catch tuna and dorado with a J hook and they will not be disqualified." Now I am more confused than ever. The Bisbees Off Shore Tournaments are kill tournaments. You don't win if you don't kill the biggest fish. Now it is mandatory to use a circle hook when baiting a marlin but not when baiting other game fish? I just don't get it.....
What are they thinking?
This week, George Gavallos showed up with some of his family and friends. When George fishes with us they always bite. This guy has good Karma and this year was no exception. First day out his request was some fish for the cooler and they bagged 14 yellowfin to 40 pounds and released a sailfish. Second day they filled our fish box with tuna again and came in early. Today was planned to be a lady and kids day. Before 8AM the kids had all the action they could handle including several roosterfish. While they retired to our air conditioned parlor George couldn't stand it so we went out and smacked the tuna one more time.
Kevin is thinking he might have a contender
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