BY MIKE STEVENS
CABO SAN LUCAS – The 24th-annual WON Cabo Tuna Jackpot closed with team Prestige Worldwide emerging as the champions of the two-day tournament that paid out a record grand total of $1,533,800.
Fishing aboard the sportfisher, Vaquera, the winning tuna was the first fish brought to the scale in the entire event and the yellowfin caught by angler Mark Locken weighed 183.1 pounds.
That surely was not a number that made that team think they had anything but a decent Day 1 that could score them a hefty check for being involved in the optional payouts, but wind and swell conditions would make things tough on most teams throughout the tourney, and it ended up being enough to lock up the championship.
With another day of fishing to go, the crew told Western Outdoor News the fish was caught on a squid, and they were fishing the Gordo Bank where wind was not an issue for most of the day, but they didn’t want it mentioned at that point because they would be heading out there the next morning.
The base payout for emerging as the overall winners was $66,300, but team Prestige Worldwide’s involvement in multiple tuna optionals shot their overall payout to a total of $244,900.
Second place went to Castro’s Tournament team who landed a 144.55-pound yellowfin, and third went to team Crudo for their 136.45-pounder. However, due to the optionals many teams entered, they actually scored bigger payouts than the winning team which isn’t uncommon in any WON tournament involving optionals, which are basically side pots for teams looking for loftier pay days. Crudo took home $282,500, and team Burro scored $260,500 which both beat the payout of Prestige Worldwide.
There were also optionals available for wahoo and dorado on both days of the Cabo Tuna Jackpot. On Day 1, Consolidated Supply grabbed $46,400 for a 30.05-pound wahoo followed by a torpedo 50.85 pounder brought to scale on Day 2 by team WTF that also took home a check for that amount.
On the dorado side, team Twice Bitten’s 33.15-pound dodo was worth $53,600 on Day 1. One of the most impressive catches of the Cabo Tuna Jackpot was a 40.5-pound bull gaffed by team Reel Quest on Day 2. That was the last fish weighed in the tournament, and because Reel Quest was involved in both the $1,000 and $3,000 dorado optionals, they were paid $159,200.
Look for full details on the top finishers and payouts at the 2022 Cabo Tuna Jackpot will appear in the full-review of the event that will soon appear in Western Outdoor News. For a sneak preview of that and more photos from the event, visit our Instagram page.
