BY MIKE STEVENS
CABO SAN LUCAS— When it comes to chasing big bucks in the Cabo Tuna Jackpot (CTJ), it’s really all about the optionals. That’s no secret to CTJ veterans (most teams are in the optionals at some level) and teams chasing six-figure payouts tend do go “all in” and put themselves in the running for the whole enchilada.
On Day 1, Sneak Attack’s 284.65-pound yellowfin ran away with it and ultimately held up as the top tuna of the event that claimed the 2023 CTJ championship. The biggest fish of Day 2 was significantly smaller at 102.75 pounds, but the team that caught it was indeed “all in, ” resulting in a huge payday.
According to the team captain that had some fun with the math, it can be said that their fish may have been the most valuable tuna ever caught.
“I just got thinking about it, and I recall a tuna selling in a sushi market in Tokyo, and it was a bluefin tuna that weighed 612 pounds and it sold for $3.1 million,” said Jim Rosenwald of team North Star. “If you divide the 612 by that, it comes to $5,065 per pound which is pretty expensive. Our 102-pound tuna per pound was worth $5,280, or $142 per pound more. So it was the most expensive tuna ever caught in the world, in a sense. It’s just trivia but it’s kind of unique.”
North Star’s Day 2 tuna was worth $528,400 in the optionals. Factoring in the second-place finish, they team scored a total of $535,150 in the CTJ.
Rosenwald spends half the year in Minnesota and the other half in Baja (La Playa), and the rest of his team consists of locals. He’s been fishing the CTJ every year since 2009. North Star won the CTJ in 2012 and again in 2017. While they’ve caught the biggest tuna of the day four times, this was the first time they were in across the board in the tuna optionals. Rosenwald fishes several tournaments in the area leading up to and following the CTJ, and the goal is at least doing well enough in one to cover the others.
““If I can fish these tourneys and place in one, I’m good. You’re accomplishing something,” he said.
The team fishes out of a locally-built 32-foot center console packing a pair of Suzuki 350s that’s aptly named, Estrella del Norte. The crew is led by Captain Roberto Beltran of La Playa, and two of the team members were there when North Star won the CTJ in 2017.
“They’re good. A well-rounded team, and it takes a team to do it,” said Rosenwald.
North Star connected with their winning tuna while fishing the Gordo Banks with a number of other boats in the area, and it took some work to get the fish around the boat and feeding.
“There were probably 20 other boats on outer Gordo fishing that day,” said Rosenwald. “The tuna weren’t biting, but what turned the tide for us was we were able to get some really nice, big sardines that morning before we left the marina, and when we started throwing them out, tuna came up and started feeding on them.”
Chumming those ‘dines as well as squid did the trick, and the big biter was tamed on 100-pound braid to 100-pound mono to 80-pound fluorocarbon loaded on a Shimano Talica 25. The team also caught a pair of smaller dorado “by accident” and had another tuna hooked up that came unbuttoned.
“I think it’s just a great tournament overall,” said Rosenwald. “I just enjoy it. It’s a very well attended tournament down here.”
