After a near miss of tropical storm Octave, the 15th annual Los Cabos Billfish Tournament kicked off Tuesday evening with a festive final registration party and captains’ meeting on the beachside terrace of the Brigantine Restaurant at the Playa Grande Resort & Grand Spa. A total of 40 teams registered, and all of the anglers and crew enjoyed food, drinks music and gifts from the tournament. Some lucky participants won coveted door prizes including AFTCO apparel & equipment, Rick Bogert artwork, Costa sunglasses, Cabo Cigar Co. cigars, Penn Reels, Hi-5 Custom Lures, Fin-Nor reels, Seaguar leaders, Airmar electronics, Accurate Fishing Products, Geoffrey C. Smith sculptures, IWS Scales, Baja Brewing Company beer and Wiley X sunglasses. Many more door prizes and special raffle item will be given away during the awards presentation on Saturday night.
For the first time in Los Cabos’ tournament fishing history, the Los Cabos Billfish Tournament hosted a dual Bimini shotgun start out of Marina Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Los Cabos Marina in San Jose del Cabo. This allowed teams to start closer to the fishing grounds they are targeting each day. It was another beautiful sunrise as the teams raced off at the 7:30 a.m. start in hopes of finding the winning fish. The fleet saw 30 boats leave from Cabo and 10 boats leave from San Jose on Wednesday, the first day of fishing.
The tournament will award over $440,000 in cash and prizes to the teams catching the largest marlin, tuna, wahoo and dorado as well as the top three billfish-release-points teams and daily high-point-release teams. Proceeds of a silent auction and raffle will go to the Solmar Foundation benefiting many local children and elderly assistance programs. The Los Cabos Billfish Tournament is hosted by the Los Cabos Tourism Board and produced by the staff of Marlin, Sport Fishing and Salt Water Sportsman magazines.
For up-to-the-minute hook-up and scoring information during the tournament, log onto the live scorekeeper at www.LosCabosBillfishTournament.
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