Usually I don't care much for tournaments as I'm not a very competitive person and during the initial stages of planning I immediately opted out of any responsibility. I have volonteered to help with communicating the rules and details to captains however and look forward to doing so. This tournament will be televised, so I figured I'd stay as far behind the scenes as possible. Then I got to thinking...

September is typically a very slow time for us. Usually we close the shop for the month. This year the Dorado fishing is outstanding and I've been observing the catches of my fly fishing clients vs. my conventional fishing clients, so I figured that we could join the tournament, participate as fly anglers and have a damned good chance at winning!

So The Baja Big Fish Company will participate in the tournament as fly anglers in order to show others who may not know, the excellent potential our fishery offers to the fly angler. My husband Captain Francicso Muñoz and myself will be competing in our 20 and a half foot standard Panga powered by a 90Hp Honda 4 stroke that cruises at over 35 knots and Captained by Jose "Chanto" Fernandez, against other pangas and also big boats and cruisers. This event was originally intended to be a Panga tournament but the directors recently opened it up to big boats too. I say may a Panga win this thing and show them the capeabilities of the Panga!

Its a $600 US dollar entry fee ($300USD/participant) for us but if we win we win, and even if we "lose" we win. Its a win-win situation and I don't stumble on those all too often.

I came up with this idea at the same time that the owners and management of Temple Fork Outfitters were here. Also known in the fly fishing industry as TFO, they manufacture excellent quality fly rods and reels that we've been using as rentals. I have been genuinely pleased with and proud to offer them to our clients who use rental fly equipment. So TFO has been kind enough to offer sponsorship to us while we fish this tourney. We have also have a private sponsor who has financed 50% of our entry fee in exchange for our promise to set aside 25% of our tournament winnings if we're so fortunate as to place in this event. That 25% will go to start a University Scolarship fund for a native Loreto student to study then return to Loreto for an agreed upon period of years in order to contribute to the local economy and social environment. Also, after hearing about a friend of mine who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, we will also set aside 10% of any winnings for Casting for Recovery.

I know it is bad luck to start spending money before one receives it but I think this is different and hopefully it will bring us luck. I will be securing more sponsorship from the manufacturers of the products that we use between now and then so that we can promote their products in exchange for product that will be put to good use. Now that Captain Francisco and I are professional fishermen now, wish us luck!