The Buds & Suds Saltwater Challenge is a billfish tournament for points. Tournament Fish for Points: Blue/Black/Striped Marlin, Sailfish
Monitoring: Each team is provided a score card each day to register their fish caught.
The Tournament Start Time is 7:00am. Boats leave the dock at 6:55am.
Lines out at 3:00pm
All billfish are catch and release. Each team must be able to provide a video or digital photo (with a date/time stamp) showing a leader touch, clear identification of billfish species, and a clear release of all billfish caught. Make sure your video time/date profiles are accurate to Costa Rica time zone!
Teams must hand in their score cards, completed and signed with the species of fish caught and time of catch to a tournament official at the docks no later than 5:00pm for their recorded fish to qualify. (Lines out at 3pm)
Anglers may receive assistance from their captain/crew in hooking and landing fish. This is a fun tournament and it’s perfectly acceptable for crew to hook and assist anglers during the fight.
Points are awarded as follows:
Sailfish – 100 points per fish caught. As these species are catch and release, a “leader touch” and a video or digital photo with time & date stamp and clear fish identification is required to verify the catch.
Black/Blue/Striped Marlin – 300 points per fish caught. As these species are catch and release a “leader touch” and a video or digital photo with time & date stamp and clear fish identification is required to verify the catch.
The TEAMS with the highest point total over the 2 days win.
*If fish species identification cannot be 100% verified with the video/photo, the team will be awarded 100 points.
Tiebreakers:
In the event of a tie on billfish points between multiple teams, rankings will be determined by the first team to reach their aggregate point total by time of catch.
Example: If Team “A” reached their point total at 1:17pm and Team “B” reached their point total at 2:16pm, Team “A” beats Team “B”.
PLEASE NOTE: Make sure your video time/date profiles are accurate to Costa Rica time zone!
Note: In Costa Rica, you are not allowed to bring any Billfish (sailfish or marlin) out of the water. You can however take photo's/videos of the Billfish along-side the boat before the leader is cut and the Billfish is released.
______________________________________________________________________________ Optional Tuna & Dorado Jackpot
Teams have the option of raising the stakes and putting skin in the game by placing a bet in the Tuna & Dorado Jackpot.
Entry into the Jackpots is $1,500 per Team
The total cash collected will be evenly split between the Tuna Jackpot and the Dorado Jackpot. The Team that catches the single largest Tuna and the Single largest Dorado during the 2-day tournament will win the cash in that pot. Minimum weight to qualify for both Tuna & Dorado is 20lbs. Cash will roll forward and backwards if no qualifying fish is caught on either day. In the rare event that no qualifying fish is caught on either day, the cash rolls into the Overall tournament and splits between 1st, 2nd & 3rd place finishers at a 50/30/20 split.
The optional Tuna & Dorsado Jackpot entry is $1,500 per Team. 90% payout to the winning team. 10% of the winnings goes to the winning boats captain and crew.
Entry into the optional Tuna & Dorado Jackpot is cash only and will be collected on opening night.
