Everything about Bisbee’s trio of annual fishing tournaments in Los Cabos is outsized. The fish caught by competing teams of anglers are enormous. Qualifying billfish, for example, must be at least 300 pounds, and many, like the record 993-pound blue marlin reeled in at the Bisbee’s Black and Blue event in 1994, are preposterously large.
The cash purses disbursed to winners are likewise immense. In 2023, the winning team at Bisbee’s Black and Blue, Stella June, received a record-breaking check for US $4.4 million (yes, the check itself was huge, too), representing just under half of the tournament’s 9 million dollar purse. The Los Cabos Offshore (LCO) and East Cape Offshore (ECO) tournaments produced purses of US $2 million and $1.8 million, respectively. That’s nearly US $13 million in combined payouts to teams given out last year — despite scheduling difficulties caused by Hurricane Norma — making Bisbee’s tournaments the most profitable way to spend one’s vacation time in Los Cabos. If you win, that is.
Naturally, the entry fees are big, too. That’s what generates the headline-grabbing purses. With that in mind, here’s what participants – and those who simply want to watch big fish straining dockside scales – can look forward to for the 2024 editions.
The East Cape Offshore kicks off Bisbee’s 2024 tournament season
The East Cape Offshore is traditionally the first of the three Bisbee’s organized tournaments to be staged. This year is no exception, with the ECO slated for three days of fishing (July 31st to August 2nd), In fact, by the time you read this, the tournament will have already concluded … likely with record-breaking results.
Why am I so sure of this? Because that’s been the pattern. The 2023 record purse of US $1,803,300 was substantially more than the $1,286,385 paid out in 2022 (a 40% increase, in fact), and ever since the ECO first surpassed the million-dollar mark in 2020, the trend has been for purses to climb steadily higher, with a new record established almost every year.
The ECO, notably, is the only tournament not centered in Cabo San Lucas. Instead, teams take to the Sea of Cortez from Buena Vista, a small town of less than 1,000 people that has been a legendarily abundant sport fishing destination since the 1950s, to seek their prey. The latter include gamefish like tuna and dorado, billfish like blue, black, and striped marlin, and sailfish and spearfish.
Billfish brings the biggest rewards at all Bisbee’s tournaments, with the purses based on the number of participants and the respective entry fees. Across-the-board entry, including daily jackpots, is US $36,000 per team at the ECO and LCO, but $84,500 at the Black and Blue ($144,500 including the daily “Chupacabra Challenge”). These enormous entry fees combined with robust participation (203 teams competed in the tournament in 2023) account for the Black and Blue’s reputation as “The World’s Richest Fishing Tournament.”
The LCO and Black and Blue Tournaments will take place in October
Although the ECO typically takes place in late July or early August, Bisbee’s LCO and Black and Blue tournaments are fixtures of the October calendar, and help to usher in high tourist season in Los Cabos. The former is scheduled for October 14-19 2024, and the latter for October 21-26.
No, it’s not too late to enter. Registration continues until the day before the shotgun start of each tournament, and there’s no limit to the size of your team save the space available on the boat. Boats can range up to 50 miles from Cabo San Lucas to catch fish.
Why Bisbee’s Black and Blue is the gold standard of sport fishing
When the late Bob Bisbee Sr. organized the first Black and Blue marlin fishing tournament in Cabo San Lucas in 1982, the purse was a modest US $10,000. But participation and payouts soon skyrocketed upwards. The purse had doubled by 1984. However, the first seven-figure plus payout for an individual team didn’t occur until 2003, when team Que Sera earned a check for US $1.16 million. Many more seven-figure checks have followed, with the success of the tournament leading to the founding of the ECO in 2000 and the LCO in 2002.
Is it the richest fishing tournament in the world? The answer is yes. In 2022, the Black and Blue’s US $11.65 million cash purse was the largest ever offered by a fishing tournament. The White Marlin Open in Ocean City, Maryland gave the most ever to its winning team in 2023, $6.2 million, but its cash purse of $10.5 million fell more than a million dollars short of surpassing Bisbee’s record. Bisbee’s has also paid out more during its history – more than US $100 million versus $95 million — than the White Marlin Open, despite holding its first tournament eight years later.
There’s also no disputing the other oft-cited nickname for Bisbee’s Black and Blue: “The Super Bowl of Sport Fishing.” The tournament is more lucrative for its winners than the NFL Super Bowl. The seven team members of Stella June took home US $4.4 million in 2023, an average of over $625,000 each. Players on the 2024 Super Bowl-winning Kansas City Chiefs pocketed only $164,000 each.
Bisbee’s tournaments give back in a big way, too
Bisbee’s tournaments are millionaire makers for winners and bring a lot of positive publicity to Los Cabos, but their value to the community goes far beyond the good press. It’s been estimated, for example, that the economic benefit to Los Cabos was about US $50 million in 2023. This figure includes the money spent by participants on hotel accommodations and boat rentals and the money spent by visiting fans while the tournaments were taking place.
The fish caught during tournaments also go to a good cause — over 20,000 pounds of fish per year are donated to feed local families — while Bisbee’s non-profit Fish and Wildlife Conservation Fund is dedicated to protecting sporting habitats on land and sea.
Chris Sands is the Cabo San Lucas local expert for the USA Today travel website 10 Best, writer of Fodor’s Los Cabos travel guidebook, and a contributor to numerous websites and publications, including Tasting Table, Marriott Bonvoy Traveler, Forbes Travel Guide, Porthole Cruise, Cabo Living and Mexico News Daily. His specialty is travel-related content and lifestyle features focused on food, wine and golf.
