A crew manning a boat registered in Evergreen won the Bisbee’s Black & Blue and Los Cabos Offshore fishing tournaments in late October, beating out roughly 200 other teams to win a cash prize of over $3.6 million at one of the largest fishing events in the world.
The team, named the Rocky Mountain Hookers, reeled in a 501-pound blue marlin on the second and final day of both tournaments to win the grand prize. Immediately after receiving the check with their winnings, the team donated $100,000 to Casa Hogar de Cabo San Lucas A.C., a local orphanage for children aged 4 to 18 years old.
The Bisbee’s tournaments have been held along Mexico’s Baja peninsula for over 30 years, according to the organization’s website. And, according to Hookers boat owner and Evergreen native Ben Doud, the tournament is particularly significant to the fishing community.
“It’s a big deal,” Doud said. “It’s the richest fishing tournament in the world.”
Doud started fishing in the Baja area around 12 years ago, but only began entering his boat into Bisbee’s tournaments in 2017. After competing for a few years in the smaller tournaments, the Hookers decided to enter into the Black & Blue — which has the highest total payout of the three Bisbee’s tournaments — in 2021, and have fished in the category since.
The team specifically went after black and blue marlin this year, and though they did not catch anything on the first day of fishing, they did find a great spot, Doud said. The next morning, they set off for the same location and, within 10 minutes of being there, Houston angler Trevor Evans had hooked a fish.
“I was on the second deck of the boat, and the fish hit and the line just starts screaming really loud … it goes from really calm to organized chaos really fast,” Evans said. “The fish came out of the water, and we knew it could win the tournament. It was that big.”
The fish brought back a memory for Evans of the 2019 Los Cabos tournament, where nearly the exact same scenario took place. Evans got a big marlin on the line on the second morning, but it broke off and swam away after just about 15 minutes. He says that the fish could have won that tournament if they had been able to reel it in.
“Ever since then, I’ve kind of had this redemption-type thing in my mind of like, if I get back in the chair, there’s nothing that’s going to get me out of this. We got to catch the fish,” Evans said.
And with his past experience in mind, Evans was determined not to let the fish get away. Although eight people crewed the boat, tournament rules allow just one angler to bring in the fish at a time.
And after over an hour of reeling, Evans brought the fish onboard.
“The first 20 minutes were the hardest by far because your adrenaline is just so (high),” Evans said. “I don’t think I’ve had a rush that high in my life. It was unreal.”
While the two tournaments are not usually held at the same time, Hurricane Norma’s landfall on Oct. 21 forced the Bisbee family to reschedule the Los Cabos tournament to the same two days as the Black & Blue tournament, allowing teams to compete simultaneously in both tournaments and count certain fish for both prize pools.
“It was pretty special because it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Evans said. “The fish itself will actually change a lot of lives for the guys on the boat.”
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