2025 Pescadora Billfish Championship Tournament Quepos Costa Rica
Feb 20-22, 2025
Story by: Art McDonald
GEOLOC: Marina Pez Vela, Quepos, Costa Rica
49 IGFTO Members attended and observed in the 2025 Pescadora Billfish Championship which was held February 20-22 at Marina Pez Vela, Quepos Costa Rica. The two-day tournament is the brainchild of Samantha Mumford who recognized that the number of female anglers, worldwide, was increasing each year, yet the available women’s only billfish tournaments were scarce.
To encourage ladies that were hesitant to try to compete against the “pros,” Samantha made the tournament a two-tiered event with ladies choosing to hook their own billfish (IGFA rules), or ladies could allow someone else to hook their fish – labeled a “hook and hand” category. The first event drew a total of 34 boats in 2020 – with a total of 339 billfish released. This was followed in 2021 (26 boats, releasing 421 billfish releases), 2022 (40 boats released 323 billfish), 2023 (52 boats released 355 billfish), and 2024 (61 boats released 717 billfish) respectively. This averages, over those 5 years, 10.1 billfish per boat for each tournament. Wait until you see the totals this year!
The Tournament got off to a bang on Thursday night with the observers, anglers, & crew meetings where the rules were gone over in detail, followed by a meet and greet time featuring some great adult beverages. On Friday morning at 8:00 AM lines were in the water and then it started….. hookups galore, released fish almost constantly, doubles, triples – the ladies “lit up the joint” – and it continued all day until the 3:30 lines out call.
This was just the beginning – day two followed with the same tempo – captains had trouble calling in fish releases – the radio was jammed with release reporting’s. When the smoke cleared, Pura Vida claimed first place with 6,450 points, followed by Kelly Dawn with 6,300 points, and Sea Duction took third place with 6,220 points. A tournament record 1,741 billfish were released – averaging out to 32.2 billfish released per boat. For those of you mathematicians, this works out to 116 releases per hour, 1.9 releases each minute and close to 1 release every 30 seconds!!!!! – WOW! Lots of champagne corks popping at the lavish awards banquet on Saturday night..
Mark your calendars for the 2026 event – it’s being held February 19-21, 2026 – you won’t want to miss this one!
