Captain Cesar Rides Marlin for Release

After this young Marlin came up to the boat very tired and slow Cesar thought it would be best to try to revive her. We tried the manual way but it did not work and Cesar offered to get in the water to move it around and pump some air back in her gills. This is the video we caught of it and glad to say the Marlin was fine and fully reenergized.

November 12th Report

With a moon a little larger than normal last night I was a little worried about today. Thank I remembered that I was in Cabo and that full moons have not affected our fishing in the 2 years that I have been here! When the boats came back in this afternoon I remembered why!

Reel Rum was the first boat back in her slip this afternoon. Hilary and Ryan Leifheit called me last week and wanted to get on a boat for a fun day of fishing. Omar was the right guy to head out with, he and Americo landed 8 Stripe Marlin for the catch and release as well as 1 Pacific Sail. The couple had a great time as this was there first off-shore adventure. Rest assured they will be getting off shore again, hopefully with us! Great job guys.

Steven Turner fished with Cesar on Tantrum this morning. "All I want to do is catch a Marlin, get it up to the boat and take a few pictures of it" is what Mr. Turner explained to me this morning be for he headed out by himself. Cesar was the guy to do it with and was able to get 2 up to the boat for photos! Great job Mr. Turner!!

Mr. and Mrs. David White brought their friend Jancie Bruce to fish with them. They headed out on El Nuevo with Juan and Alex and had a great day. Slim was able to get each one of them hooked into a Stripe Marlin for the release and also a nice Dorado for dinner! They will be headed to Misiones de Kino for that awesome platter that Israel and the gang does so well! Making me hungry.

Tomorrow is the start of another busy weekend for us with the Juaquin Classic starting up again! We are excited about having our good friends down and hope the fishing keeps up for them!

Guess I was wrong about the moon!

Redrum Takes Home 1st Place at WON Tuna Jackpot!!

2 Hour 45 Minute Fight Leads to Record 244 Pound Yellowfin!!

This past weekend Redrum Sportfishing was fortunate enough to fish in the Western Outdoor News Tuna Jackpot. El Nuevo led by Bob Kuerner, Rum Runnin with Bobby Smith and Reel Rum led by Redrum owner John Donovan represented the line up for 3 of the 97 teams that entered this years event.

Omars boat, Reel Rum was entered in as team #85 and consisted of Americo as our mate, John and Ryan Donovan along with myself as the anglers. We spent Wednesday and Thursday fishing all day to no evail. We landed 2 small Dorado on day 2 that was it. Finally on Friday all of our waiting around paid off as we landed the big one.

Trolling a green imitation squid about 200 feet off the back of the boat we all began to get a little restless. John and Ryan were sleeping down on the bottom of the boat while Omar, Americo and I sat up top sharing conversation that only seem to come up when you have been on the water as long as we were without any action.

I went for a snack while Omar headed to the front of the boat to have a little time to himself and wonder why things had been going so slow for us. Americo and I BSed for a while about life back in the US and his previous home of Mazatlan. Omar sat back down in his seat saying that he thinks he saw a boat chasing some porpoise a little ahead. I went down to get the binoculars and handed them to Omar. It only took him a split second and he decided we were going to run and see what was going on. To our disappointed it was only a couple of Frigget birds and no porpoise anywhere. That led Omar to even more disappointment and he headed turned the boat hard North and things quited down again.

About 15 minutes after the sighting heading NW off the Lighthouse (maybe 30 miles) our luck changed! In one split second the only Penn 80 that we had in our spread started screaming and screaming hard! Ryan jumped up from his "boat sleep" grabbed the rod/reel and started yanking on it to make sure the hook was set. Once all the chaos settled down on the boat and we were sure the fish was hooked we all began to try to guess what it was. Omar cancelled out the possibility of it being a Marlin or Dorado because there was no action immdeiately after the strike. Our next thoughts began to be either Wahoo or Yellowfin. Being that no Wahoo was weighed in on day 1 we were happy with either.

Ryan began to fight the fish stand-up style until the strength of the fish broke the stand up belt. 20 minutes later Omar cancelled out the possibility of a Wahoo because of the style of fight that the creature was showing us. About 20 minutes later the Yellowfin Tuna serviced for a few seconds and we got to see what kind of animal we were dealing with! As soon as the Tuna saw the boat for the first time she slammed down deep and in that moment the fight began!

For the next 2 and a half hours John, Americo and I took turns making sure Ryan was as comfortable as possible. When we talked about it later Ryan and I agreed that he drank at least 8 12 oz. bottles of water! The important part about fighting a big Yellowfin Tuna is not to rush it, stay patient and take your time. Ryan did just that. My attention span is about is small as hoochie lure so I was all over the boat. I even found myself doing pull ups from one of the metal bars that runs across the boat just to keep me from going insane!!

The fight was blow for blow the whole time. Each time Ryan would get a few cranks in and make up some of the line he had lost the tuna seemed like she was allowing it only to gain her ground as soon as Ryan would stop. This went on for over 2 hours. I still do not know how Ryan is functioning after a fight like that! Knowing that we had to be back to the weigh station at 5 pm Omar started to get a little nervous. There is nothing you can do when fighting a big Tuna except wait it out, unless you want to lose the fish. This fish we were not going to lose and Ryan made sure of it! Ryan slowly increased the drag by the milimeter until there was enough on it to pull this freight train to the boat.

Americo and I were assigned to gaffing the fish as soon as the leader came to the boat. Mind you, I have never gaffed a fish that size in my life. I have gaffed plenty of smaller Dorado but a fish that size and that importance I was a little apprehensive. Luckily for us she came up with no gas left in her tank, we were able to gaff the fish precisely. It took everyone on the team to haul it over the side of the boat and onto the deck. After I took a second glance I noticed that the fish had nearly straightened out my gaff.

As soon as we got the fish to the boat, hugs and high-fives were shared all around until Omar said "alright, this fish no count until we get to scale". Americo got the boat ready for the run and Omar began putting the pedal to the metal. It took us about 2 hours and some change to get back to the Marina. On the cruise over when we began to be able to spot land I looked over and Ryan as we decided to take a seat on the front of the boat for the ride in and said "Cabo has never looked so beautiful". He agreed and our nerves sat in.

Ryan estimated the fish weighed 214 pounds, John 412, and I undershot and said 207. When we finally got the boat to the weigh station there were over 400 people waiting there as the buzz had picked up on the Marina that Redrum was bringing in a big fish. We woooed and wowed the crowd as soon as we pulled in. I over heard one of them tell the other, that there is no fish that would even come close to ours. That's when I knew we were in good shape. We made our way through the applauding crowd to the scales. The group of people had formed a large mass surrounding the scales as there were rows of people 10-15 deep.

I have never been the focus of so many camera flashes in my life. It kind of makes you dizzy after a while. But we had a blast. The second we got it to the scale and hanged the fish the crowd grew silent. Ryan decided he was going to give a good slap to the fish as it hung. This cancelled the fish and we had to do it all over again. The second time the fish hanged there we made sure nobody touched it as we did not want to have to lift the Tuna again! As the crowd grew silent Paul from WON announced the number "Two hundred and Forty Four pounds" everyone went crazy!! The fish was over 30 pounds than we estimated and over 100 pounds from our nearest competition.

Interviews and parties occupied the rest of our night and into the early morning. Working the next morning was a little difficult!! It was well worth it.

There will be pictures to follow as soon as we get them pulled up on the computer.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed!

Saludos,

Luis

November 3rd Report

Just a few days before the WON Tuna Jackpot starts we are beginning to see a lot of Tuna around! We are crossing our fingers that they stick around for a while but we are definately enjoying them while they are here!

The Kruger party headed out on Rum Runnin today and had an excellent time. Javiers boat Rum Runnin was an awesome showing of Blue Marlin Flags and White Tuna flags when she pulled into her slip. They counted 8 catch and release Stripe Marlin and countless yellowfin tuna! Great job guys thanks for filling our freezers!

Mr. and Mrs Goodnight came in off a cruise ship today and caught and released 3 Stripe Marlin as well as a Sailfish. They were only on the water for a couple of hours and definately stayed busy the whole time. Alex and Juan had a great time fishing with them as well.

The Vela party from the South Texas CCA fished for their second day with us today and continued their success of Stripe Marlin. On day 1, Baldo Vela and his freinds reeled in 14 Stripe Marlin, today they were able to catch and release 6 of them and spent some time reeling in Yellowfin Tuna as well.

The Yzaguirres and Guerras also joined the Velas in thier Father-Son trip this year. The kids fished great with Omar and Americo on Reel Rum. On day one they spent their day catching and releasing 8 of them. Today the group caught 6 Stripe Marlin.

It was great having all the CCA groups down here. We have a great time putting you guys on fish and everyone is first class!

Saludos,

-Luis-

November 2nd Report - Tuna Landing!

Yellow fin have finally arrived!

Red Beam was the first boat of the fleet to arrive in her slip today. When RedBeam pulled into the slip today she was sporting some flags that I had not seen in a long time. Those white Tuna flags sure looked great on one of our boats. It had been too long since I had seen them and they were a beautiful sight to see. It got even better when I saw the size of the Yellowfin that Jay Simmons and his dad pulled in. 4 nice 50+ pound Yellowfin Tuna!! They hit the school early and fished it for a few hours. They were back early and plenty tired! Great job guys!

Our CCA group of the McCoys also had a great time fishing with Javier and Rum Runnin. They caught and released 6 Stripe Marlin and also were able to catch 4 Yellowfin Tuna. They were ecstatic about the catch and had a great time fishing with Javier and Manuel.

Dean Patsko from the West Coast came in off of the Oosterdamn Cruise Ship early this morning. He had just gone through 4 surgeries on his right shoulder after seriously injuring his bicep. Cesar told him that he would take care of him and help him out if they might hook into a Marlin. Might they sure did! In 5 hours Cesar and Mr. Patsko were able to catch and release 14 Stripe Marlin and a Sailfish! My hat goes off to Mr. Patsko, great job my friend!

Dave Kruger and his gang had a great time fishing with Alex and Juan. A few mechanical problems did not slow them down as they were able to catch and release heaps of Stripe Marlin as well as Yellowfin Tuna! Great job guys!

My Morning and the October 29th Report

People may not believe me but today was ANOTHER great day of fishing!

We will start off with this morning...

Tantrum had a no show so Rene (our mechanic) decided it would be a good oppurtunity to change out the air filter on Cesars boat. Once I the McElligot showed up for Rum Runnin, the Kytes on Reel Rum and the Boden part that were fishing on Nuevo all got sent off the guys that stuck around got a little bored. Cesar decided he was going to make a test run with the new air filter. Myself, Jesus, and Raymond decided we would head out with him. We were not prepared to what would come next.

As soon as we made the turn past the Arch to head up the Pacific side we noticed about 25 boats all fishing around the Lighthouse. Needless to say, we couldn't resist! Without even having to communicate with the other, Cesar gunned the boat right toward the ball of boats. The Lighthouse isn't too far at all and maybe took us about 10 minutes to get out. We dropped one line to see if we would have any luck with bait... sure enough Raymond brought in about 8 mackerals! The 3 of us, minus Cesar all grabbed a rod, made sure the hook was still good and got ready to rock! At that time Cesar gunned the boat towards a group of birds that were crashing on top of a large bait ball just about 250 yards away. We waited for his word and once he placed the boat in the perfect spot we all casted the live bait out. This may seem not possible to you guys but I promise, within 25 seconds each one of us had a fish on! None of us could believe it.

Trying to maneuver a boat with 3 Stripe Marlin hooked on is not easy, unfortunately after a good 5 minutes of fishing my fish would be the one to get off - leave it to the rookie! I looked up at Cesar and all he could do was laugh and give me the "oh well" face. After about a half hour Jesus had to cut his line because it darted in the complete opposite direction than Raymonds Marlin. Being that Raymond is Cesar's full time mate, he had to help his boy out! About another 25 minutes Raymond got his to the boat. He passed me his camera phone and I snapped a few shots. We released the fish and all had a good laugh about what just happend. Not to forget that Jesus and I pushed Raymond in the water and tried to push Cesar but if you knew Cesar once he says no, its NO!

The rest of the day was great as well. Ramon on El Nuevo was back into the slip by 12:30pm with 5 Stripe Marlin all caught and released. Erin Boden and group were more than happy with Juan and Ramons performance.

Omar also had a great time with the Kytes party. The four of them were able to catch 5 Stripe Marlin as well!

MrElligots had another great day fishing on Rum Runnin. Today they caught and released 5 Stripe Marlin and were fortunate enough to catch a 93" Pacific Sailfish. One of the bigger Sails that I have seen in a while! Great job guys!

Well I hope you guys enjoyed reading about how terrible my job is!

Saludos.

-Luis-