Bisbee Black and Blue Marlin Jackpot Tournament 2000

For the fourteenth consecutive year our fabled fishing team found its way down to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico at the southern tip of Baja California to compete in the richest saltwater sporting competition in the world. This was the twentieth edition of the Bisbee’s Black and Blue Marlin Jackpot Tournament. There was in excess of $2.3 million in prize money at stake with the daily jackpots being nearly $450,000!

Our team again included Houstonian Richard Richardson who along with the undersigned acted as an angler. Fellow Texan Mike Sims had secured a 60-foot Hatteras the “Achiever” with Captain Jimmy Ronas as our fishing platform when his new boat was not completed in time to make the competition. Captain Mike Canino also from Houston acted as first mate and Mike Sims’s son Shane was slated to be the gaff man. Richard or I would swing the first gaff depending on who was busy in the chair. This was quite a seasoned team with a collective experience in excess of a thousand blue marlin caught.
 

60-foot Hatteras "Achiever"
We suffered quite an inauspicious start when as we roared away from the starting line on the Bimini start the very first day of the tournament we lost an engine. We worked on it for several hours without success and eventually fished fairly close to shore being unable to make it out to the sea mound, which had been our original planned destination. We did have a strike from a blue probably weighing about 350 pounds as we worked some inshore canyons on the Sea of Cortez side of the Peninsula but the fish did not stick. We had no other action the first day except for some Dorado.

The second day we still had but one engine due to some incredibly frustrating reasons that I will not delineate now. We made it out to the sea mound at a slow troll and got back in very late due to our inability to travel at more than 10 knots. We caught a small striped marlin and some more Dorado but had no luck with the species we were seeking, black and blue marlin. We did catch some small yellowfin tuna and did some live-baiting for several hours but had no better luck with that than we had experienced with our lures.

Boats at the Starting Line The Arch
Rich Richardson

The final day of the tournament we finally had two engines. Once again we went out to the sea mound and worked our way back toward the Gordo Bank. We caught some more small tuna and Dorado but had no marlin attack our lures or live bait. We did see a free swimming blue and several stripers but could not entice a bite out of any of them.

There were 243 teams with nearly a thousand anglers counting alternates in the tournament. We were certainly not the only boat that did not get a qualifying fish. The tournament was won by the “After Midnight” team from California with a 500 pound black marlin. They took home $989,110 for their efforts. Another big winner was the “Chupacabra” team from Texas, which garnered a paycheck of $574,560. They had taken home a nice check last year as well. Team “Minerva III” lost out when their 534-pound blue was disqualified for an inadvertent rule infraction. Our frustration couldn’t hold a candle to theirs. Looks like we will all just have to wait until next year once again.
 

Mike Sims Captain Mike Canino
The Team

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