October 22nd through the 26th in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico marked the richest marlin tournament in history. There was more than $1.4 million in prize money distributed to the winners. The daily jackpots alone approached $300,000! This was also the last leg of the World Billfish Series Championship with the winner being crowned following completion of the competition at the awards banquet. With all of this money at stake I just had to attend this extravaganza and take my shot at some of the cash. I was also the leader in the WBS point standings and therefore needed to compete to win the championship.

We assembled an incredibly talented team for this event. Jimmy Lawson from Midland/Odessa, Texas, a multiple winner of the Texas gulf angler of the year award, and I were the principal anglers with my good friend and talented angler Ron Keith from San Diego, being the third. In the cockpit were two world class wire and gaff men Alan Latham and Richard Richardson, both also Texans. We had chartered the “Salsa,” a 50’ well outfitted Hatteras as our platform and its captain Randy Rozell was extremely experienced and knowledgeable.

By 9 o’clock on the first morning we already had tagged and released our first blue marlin. He was a small fish weighing barely over a hundred pounds but seemed to provide an omen of even better things to come. Unfortunately that proved to be the last fish we would catch during the tournament as well. During the remainder of the tournament we saw three fish that would have qualified to weigh, all in the 400 to 500 pound class, but two bit and didn’t stick and the other was strictly a window shopper.

Despite our best intentions and all of that assembled talent we ended out with no more than third place in the “tag and release” division. Much to our disgruntlement we left all of that money for someone else to take home. Fortunately I had a large enough lead in the World Billfish Series Championship that no one caught me for the lead despite my relatively paltry showing. The championship brought with it a beautiful trophy and a spectacular custom 80# bent butt rod by Mark Johnson of Stealth Rod Works.

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