| Marlin Tournament |
|
|
|
Page 1 of 3
Big Fish
Boats in Bisbee’s billfish tourney round the point in Cabo San Lucas harbor after a shotgun start
A greenback offering to Neptune
The boats themselves tell the tale: You’ve got guys casting sardines off the backs of yachts big enough for helipads. You’ve got hopefuls in day boats smaller than the dinghies aboard the hulking mini-liners. And making up the multi-million-dollar median are dozens of Hatterases, Mikelsons, and Vikings in the 60-foot range, looking every bit as muscular and dangerous as their quarry. Powered down and rumbling, these billfish battlewagons make a deep-throated gargle as they suck in and spit out green bay water, tingeing the salt air with diesel fumes, hinting at the fury about to be unleashed on the Sea of Cortez. It’s heady stuff for the once humble Black & Blue, a fishing tournament that remains, at heart, a bar bet writ large. Back in 1982, when the first, informal Bisbee’s hit the seas, it was just Newport Beach, California, tackle-shop owner Bob Bisbee and his cronies, who’d been coming to Cabo since it was the proverbial sleepy fishing village, in the early sixties. Bisbee was a local legend for driving from Newport Beach to Cabo—1,100 miles of highway—some 20 times a year. One night at the Mar de Cortez bar, he tossed out a new challenge to a handful of friends, telling them to put up or shut up. They put up: a total pot of ten grand in cash, slapped on the table, biggest billfish takes all. Now in his seventies, Bob will somewhat sheepishly recollect that he won that bet. Won the next bet too, the following year, when the pot swelled to accommodate 13 boats, and Bob Jr. captained for his old man. “Winning two years in a row seemed a little self-serving,” Wayne Bisbee says, explaining why the family segued from winning to organizing the tournament. Since taking over the director’s job from his dad, Wayne has foiled a kidnapping plot and been thrown in jail for disqualifying a local angler who failed a lie-detector test after brazenly trying to pawn off a marlin purchased from a long-liner as his own. He has also seen the three-day tourney grow from a gritty affair with cash tossed haphazardly on a hotel mattress to a world-renowned clash of sportfishing titans—and the town of Cabo San Lucas turn into, well, the woozy Cabo of Cabo Wabo, with golf courses and gated communities. But the tournament brings in serious money for the town, and a winning fish can change lives, especially those of little-known local captains and crews. |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|