Isla Cedros 5th Annual
Yellowtail Tournament August, 10th 2008
Hola Everyone~
It's been a while since my last report, been grinding away working. Plus I'm just about over with the summer months on Isla San Marcos , it's just overall slow fishing and too hot, but I do need to check in for time to time and did .... and part of it has to do with this Great Event I was invited by ES and COMSA to participate in. Wouldn't miss that for the world! Here's a break down of my adventure.
It all begins at Guerrero Negro and the invitation from Edmundo Elorduy General Director ES (exportador de sal ) to COMSA. So here we are at 5:00 p.m. getting on ES's private plane headed for the 5th Annual Yellowtail Tournament on Cedros Island of the central Baja Californian coast.
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Flight takes about 20 plus minutes or so. Cedros sits 64 nm from airstrip to airstrip. Pilot takes it up to 3000 feet or so and then levels out in a slight decent at 240 knots and Zoooooom we are on the beautiful island.
Once we cleared the luggage inspection..... oh yeah that's right there is a mandatory drug and contraband search on both ends at all major and remote airstrips. WE are at the ES/TS guest house next the airstrip and salt reserves/loading facility. Here's Carlos Garces (left) and Carlos Aramburo (rt) and Fernando Foyo both which would end up being my team mates for the event.
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ES/TS are the largest Sea Salt Producers in the world. Sea salt has about 50,000 different uses ,but generally are use in the manufacture of plastics and as road salt in the USA.
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Okay on our way through downtown Cedros, very narrow roads of cliff side town with a ocean charm to it and the madecon with the event area.
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Captain's and participant meeting, also Subscriptions for teams of 3 where pre-assigned . Cost was 300 pesos ($30 usd) per angler. Tournament rules and format... Biggest Yellowtail, Over Volume of Yellowtail (total weight of all yellowtail) and a special overall weight of Bonito caught were the three honors for this Event. Tournament is put on by Bulebar "24" Club and it's a first class event. As well the new www.cedrosadventures.com sponsored.
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The next morning and down on the dock for selection of boats and guides.
I,d say my team scored!! 25 foot Boston Whaler with a 200HP Yamaha 4 should do the trick getting to Moro Redondo Bajo... and it was a little breezy out of the west as we left the marina and town in back ground, just love that town, surely one of the coolest I've seen.
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Well I'll just say this... nice boat, but no bait tank! no sounder and only a hand held GPS with two areas both which I knew. Have to do, never need to use bait here the other times I've fished these waters. Ah but we had to make a stop at one of the salt tugs to get the Captain "Manual"'s gaffs for us and another boat and when along side the tug.... two crew guys were catching mackerel, so without tank we still caught a few pieces and put then in a with fresh water, but no pump. Ride to the fishing grounds is only about 20 minutes or so and maybe we can get a few live ones in the water on the first drift.
And we did get one live mackerel out.... and Carlos Aramburo gets first blood on what was looking like a really good fish. Funny thing about it was once we got color on the fish we could not fine the gaff any where! So it was up to my bare hand tactic to get the fish in the boat.... once I saw the size is when things got dicey. Ah but I did not fail with my cat like grip. Rest of the day was a grind, but a fun one catching lots of Bonita, Barracudas and a few calico bass. Lots of bait in the water and we did see yellows swimming around the kelps, but not in a very aggressive manner.
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I was able to catch one good yellow right about the same size as Carlos's and once we got back to the scales all would be told of how we did.Nice yellowtail... looking like over thirty pound too. have to find out later on that one and three other we managed that day. Here's some of the other stuff we caught during the morning and afternoon. Tournament line out and last call was to be at 3:00 p.m. |
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Ton~O~ Bonito was the deal out there with all the bait in water... And a few log cudas where fun on the lighter surface iron and 30 pound gear. All the birds every where made it had to pick a place to fish. |
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A few other boats in the area making afternoon bait out front of the salt loading barges and pier saw the Royal Star and the American Angler out of San Diego. The salt barges where we started our morning was where we ended it catching one of these home guard fish that hang around the buoys which moor the salt containers, note the cars on the barge.... that's how I'm bringing my boat out there next year.
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Biggest fish of the day was this one buy Antonio Rocha Nice white sea bass of 22 kilos.
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And here we (Team Diablo) are doing total weight.... but it was the two 15 kilo fish which was important. Still had 11 teams out and not weighed in. Below was the wonderful people of Cedros Island and the great beach fish fry they had ready for everyone free.... great stuff after a long day of fishing.
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AND THE FINAL STANDINGS OF THE 5th ANNUAL CEDROS ISLAND YELLOWTAIL
TOURNAMENT AUGUST, 10th 2008
FIRST PLACE BIGGEST YELLOWTAIL
Two way tie... three fish weighed in at 15 kilos, two from our team and one for the other. Note get better digital scale next year. No matter it was never about the winning it was about friend and good times.
Team/Equipo Nutria: Raul Zuniga, Ricardo Duarte and Jesus Zuniga~ Capt. Antonio Zaragoza
Team/Equipo Diablo: Fernando Foyo, Carlos Aramburo and Mike Kanzler~ Capt. Manuel Villavicencio
FIRST PLACE VOULEM YELLOWTAIL
Overall weight of total yellowtail caught weighed in at 122 kilos.
Team/Equipo Cedros Adventures: Jacob Corona, Larry Krause and Kent Rohrenbach~ Capt. Diego Aviles
FIRST PLACE VOULEM BONITO
Team/Equipo Pingui: Joel Medina, Juan Varela and Edgar Ceballos~
And that about wraps it up for this very grand event. Here's Team Diablo and what a great team it was. Off we go back to Guerrero Negro.
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We stayed the night at Es's guest house and had our good bye dinner .
See you all next year..... I would like to Thank All those at ES, specially Edmundo Elorduy and Salvador Felix for inviting me and also COMSA for inviting me. And not least The beautiful people of Cedros island and Jose Meneses Garcia of Bulebar "24" Club and www.cedrosadventures.com