CBSC Fishing Derby to resume!

Mexico Joe

Cholla Bay 4 Life
Does Villa have to launch you if you enter the derby? Asking for a friend. Villa is extremely upset with this AMIGO AHORA... Amigo says that Villa absolutely hates his guts right now and says he will never launch my friend again after my friend said something NON disrespectful but highly critical of Villa straight to his face. Now my friend launches at Safe Marina where he gets superior treatment, fair treatment, honest pricing and secure overnight boat storage for $5/night.... My friend would really like to be able to launch in Cholla Bay again as that's where he grew up but Villa is being emotional and irrational right now even though my friend went to his house and apologized straight away to his face after the aforementioned personal opinion/observation. He has since apologized again without reconciliation. It is an unfortunate incident to say the least. My friend told me how embarrassing it is now when he's eating at MR FISH and Villa walks up and looks at him but doesn't say hi like the last 22 years. Highly unfortunate. My friend said thank god for capitalism though because Safe Marina overall is a superior operation. He said it just sucks when you want to go out to the 12, 14, 22, Sand Dunes. SM adds another 6 miles to each one way... O well. Maybe my friend will enter the derby and try and talk to him one more time.
 

Mexico Joe

Cholla Bay 4 Life
You entering shore or boat with the Seadoo? What weekend/s are you doing? We MIGHT be at the first weekend. Depends on what wifey says. Blair cousin might be there and wanted to get out on the boat so we might be going. We're going this weekend though so not 100% sure we can do the first weekend but we would like to do first and last weekends. The second weekend is hard because then you have to go down twice in two weeks and for non owners that gets PRICEY!!!! MUY CARO SENORRRRRRRRRR
 

Nicolai

Active Member
So yes you must launch from Cholla as far as I have gathered I made sure to ask, because I was going to charter from old port, and Villa is doing launching from what I gather, we changed the May dates because he didn't want to deal with the radical and odd timing tide,(understandable).

I'll be down the first and last weekend as well, I'm not taking the Jet Ski unfortunately, I am actually trying to sell it, newly pregnant and well it's just not ideal for my pregnant Fiance to join me on or have a newborn on it lol. I'll probably look into a boat later. So I'll be mostly working the scales and shore fishing when I can.

I hope Villa will come to his senses, I'm sure he will be expecting a lot of boats now that he is aware of the Derby and that will let things be water under the bridge.
 

Mexico Joe

Cholla Bay 4 Life
So yes you must launch from Cholla as far as I have gathered I made sure to ask, because I was going to charter from old port, and Villa is doing launching from what I gather, we changed the May dates because he didn't want to deal with the radical and odd timing tide,(understandable).

I'll be down the first and last weekend as well, I'm not taking the Jet Ski unfortunately, I am actually trying to sell it, newly pregnant and well it's just not ideal for my pregnant Fiance to join me on or have a newborn on it lol. I'll probably look into a boat later. So I'll be mostly working the scales and shore fishing when I can.

I hope Villa will come to his senses, I'm sure he will be expecting a lot of boats now that he is aware of the Derby and that will let things be water under the bridge.
No chance. Cholla Bay is worse than high school! In regards to launching. Technically I believe the rules only state that the fish has to be weighed in Cholla Bay. I don't believe it's illegal to launch from the port but more that you would have to weigh your fish in CB at the scale and without a dock, how do you do that? Anchor in 4 feet of water and swim the fish in? I think that's pretty much why everyone launches in CB but I could be wrong. I guess my friend will have to drag Hippie's ass out of his stupor with a Tecate Rojo for a couple of days if Villa turns down more money. My friend estimates Villa has lost approximately $200 already in missed opportunity. I had to remind my friend that CB is like high school and even people like Lucky Chucky have had their THERE spats with Villa. My friend says Villa is one of those guys that's almost permanently salty and you never know which Villa you'll get on a given day.
 

Nicolai

Active Member
No chance. Cholla Bay is worse than high school! In regards to launching. Technically I believe the rules only state that the fish has to be weighed in Cholla Bay. I don't believe it's illegal to launch from the port but more that you would have to weigh your fish in CB at the scale and without a dock, how do you do that? Anchor in 4 feet of water and swim the fish in? I think that's pretty much why everyone launches in CB but I could be wrong. I guess my friend will have to drag Hippie's ass out of his stupor with a Tecate Rojo for a couple of days if Villa turns down more money. My friend estimates Villa has lost approximately $200 already in missed opportunity. I had to remind my friend that CB is like high school and even people like Lucky Chucky have had their THERE spats with Villa. My friend says Villa is one of those guys that's almost permanently salty and you never know which Villa you'll get on a given day.
So you can launch from safe harbor just bring the fish to JJs via boat to weigh in
 

Nicolai

Active Member
We had a windy weekend! Only got 3 boats to go out!

Target fish: Cochi (Trigger fish)

My fiance led the way with trigger from shore weighing 2.7 lbs beating one boat until Sunday when someone braved the wind and brought in a 4.8 lb!

Had a lot of fun, met a lot of people and made even more friends.

Everyone brought in some good fish, lots of Corvina, Halibut, Pompano, even an 8lb Sardinero from shore! (To bad it's not a surf category)

I got to help run the show, manning the radio shack and weighing fish, helpi
 

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Mexico Joe

Cholla Bay 4 Life
Pic #7 is a Panama Graysby

Pompano are officially extinct in Rocky Point waters. I have actually never seen one caught or on ice for that matter. Maybe JJ will chime in. Pic # 4,6 are Leatherback Jacks and IMO don't even resemble African Pompano not to mention that they are not considered table fare and are really oily and have spines that contain an irritant so when you get poked you burn/itch the rest of the day.... but good category. I wonder if Kyle ate those later?

I think going into the future the derby needs to be restructured due to April and May now being the 2 most windy months of the year. It seems like 5 straight derbys have been winded out. I think they need to go back to the JJ's style tourney where anyday in a given 2 months is acceptable to weigh a fish but it has to be done at the official scale. Points are awarded for specie and weight. Tally up the points at the end of the "SEASON" tourney whatever you want to call it. Picking three weekends 5 months in advance isn't really working anymore. SHAWNO tha GOD posted pictures on IG from April 18, 19 and 20 and the water was like glass!!! Unreal! Then you fast forward 2 days and the Derby gets BLOWN OUT.

I think that has to kill the interest from many. Unless you have a house you can't spend $500 on a HOPE that it won't be windy "X" weekend. The whole week should have been open. You're telling me that out of all the baby boomer retirees in CB there's nobody to man the radio shack for 7 days on a given week? You have to be EXTREMELY lucky to pick 3 days on the calendar months in advance and not have it be windy. What happens when all three weekends get winded out????

There's competitive, semi competitive fishing tourneys for kayak fisherman here in AZ and across the states. Mostly bass guys from what I can tell but it's all digital. Fish is caught, photographed and photographed on the folding fish tape to see length. I think some require weighing the fish as well. The catch is then uploaded into an app and points are awarded. Obviously this would be much harder with 80lb fish but the unique part about these semi-competitive leagues or whatever you want to call them is that you can go out and fish whenever YOU HAVE THE FREE TIME. Not under the constraint of, this day for X amount of hours regardless of weather conditions. Just too hard these days to get that many people committed on the same dates... It would be easier if you could plan your fishing around the weather and then any fish that is caught within a structured amount of time could be considered. In this case, if you would have been able to go out on April 18 when the water was fishable instead of only being able to go out 22-24th... It would have been a different derby. With results. And desire to come back!
 

Nicolai

Active Member
Well I see your point! I'm also a fan of that idea, I've never really done derby's before until this one, I was disappointed when JJs stopped doing theirs, I was looking forward to it. However I still really enjoy doing this as well since it's an excuse to get some extra time down there.

The wind sucks, it's easier for me mostly surf fishing that stuff if I can find a good spot. I think maybe trying it in October like JJs did would be a blast.

There are plenty of people down there to manage the scales, or hey even a phone call to get someone in to weigh some fish when they come in.

Maybe we will get lucky this coming weekend!
 

Jungle Jim

Well Known Member
JJ's Chime in...............

So Joe, I have never seen an actual "Pompano" caught out of PP or any other spot in the Upper Gulf.

I used to catch them on every day's trolling off of the Pacific coast of Panama. They weren't as common or as big on the Caribbean coast there but we used them rigged up for trolling with big killer treble hooks to get huge Great Barracudas off of the coral reefs there.

Don't know if they were the same species on either side but they were not really good eating as most fish in the jack family are bitter tasting even after bleeding them out and cutting out the dark meat before it spoils the remainder of the carcass. Yellow Tail, Amber Jacks and Blue Runners are the exception though if properly bled as soon as they hit the deck as all three are the best eating!

Those Leather Jacks out of PP are fun to catch and I always keep them for my mutts. The little spikes on the dorsal fin will give you a good reason to be careful when handling a live one.

They are the favorite food of the big Common Dolphin and will come inshore to waters only a few feet deep to hunt them. You can catch endless numbers of them right now where Sandy Beach meets Cholla Mountain just off of the rock reefs.

JJ
 

Jungle Jim

Well Known Member
So Jerry....................

Ciguatera fish poisoning only occurs in one of the several species of Barracudas and that would be the Great Barracuda found worldwide but only in warm clear tropical waters.

Personally, I have had minor symptoms of Ciguatera poisoning many times and major symptoms of it three times in my life. The first and worst was after eating a big old tough Amberjack that I caught trolling from a panga out of Los Barriles on the East Cape. The fish had spent most of the day un-gutted on the deck in the sun and heat. Back at camp I filleted it and grilled it over Mesquite then pigged out. Luckily my wife refused to eat any of it. Within a very short time, like maybe thirty minutes I stood up and fell over backwards on the sand. She thought I was mucho barracho while I thought someone had slipped some LSD in the food.

A few years later I bought at big blue Parrot Fish from a guy on the beach at Nigril on Jamaica. Same thing, I filleted it and pan fried the greenish translucent meat, pigged out and within a short time and the same symptoms and knew exactly what the cause was.

The last time was after catching a boatload of some type of beautiful multi-colored Trigger Fish off of the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia. One of my rotor head mechanics was a SoCal Mexican who decided to make up a big pot of ceveche for the boys. Same thing happened to everyone of us that ate that delicious crap. Mostly the feeling of extreme dizzyness and loss of body control.

As for eating the Great Barracuda they happen to be one of the most delicious of all fish that I know of. I spent five years in Panama and had rented a beach side shack for most of those years on an island on the Panama Caribbean coast known as Isla Grande. We would leave our vehicle on the mainland beach then take a water taxi (panga) out to the island. I became good friends with the island head man and his family. They were English speaking Caribben black people and he just loved the bottle of Appelton's Rum that I always brought him from the PX on base.

He had a twenty five foot dugout canoe that was powered with an old ten horse power outboard. I would bring him two five gallon jerry cans of gas on each trip and take the empties back home for a refill on the next trip. These guys lived off of the ocean and the tropical fruit trees on the island.

They mostly paddled their dugouts but had built a flat vertical transom into most of them. They had two old outboards that were rarely used due no no mucho moneda and even less chance of acquiring a few gallons of gasoline. They had fish and lobster traps all over the coral reefs there and would let me go along to do some trolling in between trap hauls. The fishing there was incredible. One day Pedro asked me if I had ever caught El Grande Picua. I said no so lets get one! He took a five pound Skipjack wound it up with some of my wire leader and three of the biggest treble hooks from my tackle box.

We cruised out to a smaller island known as Isla Tambor and trolled along the coral reef just outside of the huge breakers. The dugout was too narrow to stand up and had only two or three inches of freeboard. The first hit and solid hookup almost pulled me overboard. It was a Great Barracuda close to five feet long. When I got it up to the boat Pedro took out a claw hammer and beat the fishes head in before boating it.

Back at the shack they cut it up into one pound chunks then deep fried them in a huge fifty gallon iron pot filled with some sort of cooking oil that hadn't been changed in many years. Now I knew all about Ciguatera poisoning and was really leery about eating that fish. They convinced me though and we had fresh deep fried Great Barracuda on almost every trip along with a few fresh caught steamed Spiny Lobsters. Never got sick once there but did get a good longtime case of Malaria. A couple of those Picuas fed everyone on the island.

As for more barracuda lore..............

The Great Barracuda may look similar to the other species but is totally different in all aspects of it's life and habits. It is a solitary sit-and-wait predator that hides in caves and under coral outcrops along the reefs. When something catches their eye they make an incredible high speed attack and usually slice the fish in half with their razor-like front teeth. They grow huge compared to the other species, some reaching six feet or more and over 100 pounds. Most of those that I caught in Panama were close to five feet long and were in the fifty or sixty pound range.

The Pacific and Sea of Cortez barracudas are off-shore schooling types that feed on schooling bait fish such as Anchovies and Sardines. The Pacific Barracuda that used to be common off of southern California was a very popular gamefish and one of the best eating.

The little Mexican Barracuda that is so common off of Isla San Jorge is in my opinion worthless as food but I do keep them all as mutt food. There is another one known as the Blackfin Barracuda that sometimes mixes with the Mexican Barracudas. They seem less slimy than the common one and are usually larger.

As a final note. None of our local barracudas could possibly contain the Ciguatera poison nor do our delicious Fine Scale Trigger Fish.

JJ
 

Mexico Joe

Cholla Bay 4 Life
JJ's Chime in...............

So Joe, I have never seen an actual "Pompano" caught out of PP or any other spot in the Upper Gulf.

I used to catch them on every day's trolling off of the Pacific coast of Panama. They weren't as common or as big on the Caribbean coast there but we used them rigged up for trolling with big killer treble hooks to get huge Great Barracudas off of the coral reefs there.

Don't know if they were the same species on either side but they were not really good eating as most fish in the jack family are bitter tasting even after bleeding them out and cutting out the dark meat before it spoils the remainder of the carcass. Yellow Tail, Amber Jacks and Blue Runners are the exception though if properly bled as soon as they hit the deck as all three are the best eating!

Those Leather Jacks out of PP are fun to catch and I always keep them for my mutts. The little spikes on the dorsal fin will give you a good reason to be careful when handling a live one.

They are the favorite food of the big Common Dolphin and will come inshore to waters only a few feet deep to hunt them. You can catch endless numbers of them right now where Sandy Beach meets Cholla Mountain just off of the rock reefs.

JJ
I knew it! lol I wonder how long people have been catching "non existent" Pompano??? I mean JJ's and "the derby" have had Pompano categories since the 80's so are we saying that every one of those "Pompano" was actually Leatherback Jacks????! SMH

I do agree though that they are really fun to catch. They are HYPER aggressive! They will chase lures and blow them up even up on top of the water and they do fight pretty good for how small they are. But if I'm going to be catching fish I'd rather be catching ones that I can eat!
 

Mexico Joe

Cholla Bay 4 Life
Ya know I ate one of those leathers and I thought it was very good lol
There's a thread on this forum from me from 12 years ago where I went to Rocky Point on a day trip to go fishing by myself. It was about 2 months before I broke my back. I will have to try and find the thread but I was fishing Pinto Point in CB with a kastmaster and got absolutely slammed by something BIG. Being inexperienced at the time, I let it take out a bunch of drag instead of horsing it in and it rocked up on me. I'm guessing it was a rather decent (would have been personal best) Cabrilla Sardinero. After waiting it out for a few minutes pissed off at myself for missing this nice fish I finally decided to cut the line. Again, inexperienced move. These days I would have waited that fucker out and given him some slack line and opened a six pack to wait... I digress.

Long story short, the only other bites I had that day were Leatherbacks and I was too pissed and stubborn to not bring home fish from my day trip that I brought home two big Leatherbacks and went straight to my friends house upon returning to Phx at about 7pm at night we fileted and cooked them up and honestly, I couldn't really tell. Tasted like fish to me, lol...

I wish I could find this thread on here but the best part is I posted a picture of the Leatherbacks on ICE!!! LOLOLOL

God, I've come a long way! LMFAO!!!
 
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