I don't know.....I think it went off something like this.
 We had been back from the Bisbee's maybe 3 or 4 days. Still not able to sit down from the spanking we took in those tourney's. Head still spinnin. Anyway, Anthony and I are talking about business, the upcoming season, the team, just a lot of stuff, and one of us ( I think it was me) brings up the PV tournament. Anthony's immediate response  "I think we should do it". I put down my burger, pick up a Red Bull and get on the internet and phone. Start calling and e-mailing everyone. Thanks especially to Drew, Felipe, Gaston and Richard. 
 Within a few hours we have a rough idea of Tournament dates, entry fees, rules, schedules, costs, participating team members etc. A lot to do in short order. I think from the time we decided to go to departure was about 5 days. The crossing can be a little rough sometimes but when it is nice the fishing can be exceptional. After checking buoy weather and seeing how nice it was supposed to be, I asked Anthony if he wanted to make the trip down. He agreed he should as this would be 1 of only 2 days of pre-fishing we would get.
 Anthony and I land at 2 pm on Monday and by 4 we are pulling out of the slip. Chad and Pete had flown in the day before and prepped the boat. I was in the desert riding bikes withe family, barely unloaded the trailer and I was on the plane. The weather couldn't have been better. A 10.
 We get to an area outside the Tres Marias, about 100 miles above PV, where i have always caught good fish. Blues, Tuna, Striper's and Sails. Driving around for just a few minutes we find huge bird schools just outside our line, Boobies, lots of em. We troll out there and I mark several Blue Marlin down deep on the fathometer. We are so far from PV I can only give it like an hour or so. I mark a couple more, no bites. there is no grid in this tournament and you can leave at midnight, but, you have to be in the harbor by 6. They have a Navy guy in a skiff checking you back in. I do the math real quick and figure 600 gallons of fuel and 6 hours of fishing time with no sleep at this distance. We need to find something closer. Pick up and take off. We look at the Banco, the 1000 and get into Corbetena Rock just before dark. We see a lot of fish on the machinery and 1 jumping Blue, no bites. Eliseo prett much summed it up, in his thick dialect, "Uh Oh!" . Yep I agree. We still aren't getting any jig strikes and I'm starting to get worried. Is it me? Is it the boat, lures, speed, watermaker....blah, blah, blah
 In the days before our arrival there had been some Black Marlin around Corbetena. It has been like 13 years since I fished around there on Mark Goldberg's "AB SEAS". I needed to get tuned up on all the high spots, hard bottoms and ridges if we were going to compete at all. We spent the whole day grinding it up with several other boats. Not a single bite for anyone. Gettin nervous now.
 We fuel, check into the Marina (great people) and head to the tournament check in across town. Different from what we are used to but fun. This is a very prestigious tournament. The 53RD/ International Puerto Vallarta Marlin and Sail fish Tournament. Lots of important Government officials and tons of history. Cool stuff. We start to realize how nice all the people are here. Genuinely gracious, courteous and nice, more cool. Hadn't eaten all day, I think I ate like half their appetizers, didn't get sick, best cool.
 We have to totally re-rig all our gear as leaders can only be 14'. Ow, all those nice leaders. I have no idea what to do, where to fish. We got nothin. Saw some fish, no bites. Pretty sleepless night. Staring at the clock trying to collect my thoughts, but.......
 Ok ,7 am shotgun start,.once again different. Right at the gun this skiff blows by me like 4' down the side of the boat. It is tight, we are in the mouth of the harbor. As he goes blowin by I notice it is Gaston. The cannon goes off, I nail it and  notice(oh no) he slowed down to avoid another boat, 90,000 pounds of boat, on plane and he is 30 feet straight in front of me. I make the best correction I can and all I can see is his antennas sticking up as I scream past him. I almost took out 2 generations as he had son on board .
 We fish several areas for nothing. Doin a good job, seeing good sign. No bites. Time to start changing things. One of the hardest things about having so many Capt. on board is if you aren't coonin em like in 3 hours everybody has a thought as to why. It can't be that the fishing is slow like the locals have told us"The worst Blue Marlin fishing in 20 years" . I always try to listen and apply their thoughts the best I can and sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Sometimes it totally ruins you.
 The next day I make a decision to go back to my original speed and we put out some lures we have been wanting to try. Bam, we have a double on Blues miss one and Anthony gets the other. He does an awesome job on the fish and gets it in less than 5 minutes. It was pretty funny, it had been so long since we had a bite when the reel went off we were looking at each other like "whats that?". The Blue comes up and we make the decision to take it. There is a 100 kilo minimum weight in this tournament. It looks to us like about 250#. I start tacking around looking for the one that got away. It's Ron's turn now and we need to get him his 21ST/ Blue or Black for the year ( Those are world class numbers, he may be the highest in the Pacific Ocean this year). After about 10 minutes I am pretty sure we found it. The fish came up on the same lure and wouldn't get off it to switch over to a Sierra Mackerel we had pitched. Ron was teasing it with the lure and it finally just climbed on. Guess it wanted to get on the bus with his buddy. Ron did a great job also. If it was total points or we didn't have the bigger fish on board we would have taken Ron's Blue also. Right at the minimum. Boy did we need that. After a couple tense hours we find out we won day 1 and 2 daily jackpots and were currently in 3RD/ place. The dailies amounted to about the same money as 1ST/ Place in the tournament. What a relief.
The last day was my fault. I should have live baited early and pulled the lures in the afternoon. I did the opposite. A couple more qualifiers were caught that pushed us into 5Th/. Still, good to go to the scales. In the end we had gone 2 for 3 on the Blues. I think we were the only boat that had 2 in the Tourney. Little stuff like that helps when trying to figure out a new boat. Gets you tuned up for the next year.
 The people of PV were wonderful. Even the local Capt. from some of the top boats embraced us and thanked us for coming to fish their tournament. Good people and class acts. I can't wait to go back!  Looking forward to summer and Fall down there next year.



  
Just arriving at the Banco with Tres Maria Islands in the distance.  Meter lite up with good marks.







Chad got a surprise while fishing for skippies.          










New Condo tower by the entrence of the harbor, there will be a small marina built there.





Getting ready for the shot gun start





Next BCE???








On the Banco, notice the small stuff chased by Skippies and tunas



Pete, casting on a Skippie school

our qualifier, 255 lbs that took day 2 and 3 jackpot














The famous Corbintania rock




Our friends Drew and Manny on the Pacifico, who helped us tremendously.  Thank you!