ZANE GREY CHAMPIONSHIP PLAYOFF PREVIEW

The top four angling clubs of SFC’s regular season are beginning to touch down in the Baja. Today marks Zane Grey Championship Playoff media day, where we will be catching up with Lights Out Boston, New Jersey Sea Birds, Texas Lone Stars and Third Coast Renegades soon after arriving at Corazon Cabo Resort & Spa. 

Let’s bring everyone up to speed on what to expect and what’s at stake:

The top angling clubs the Atlantic and Gulf Divisions will look to take the first championship of SFC’s closed competition format.

Atlantic Division Champions: Lights Out Boston Angling Club
Gulf Division Champions: Third Coast Renegades Angling Club
Atlantic Division Runner-up: New Jersey Sea Birds Angling Club
Gulf Division Runner-up: Texas Lone Stars Angling Club

What Boats Are the Clubs Competing on?

The Third Coast Renegades, primarily represented this season by Captain Landon Bell, Angler Gregg Trenor and mates Zack Redman and Connor McLeod on “Southern Charm/All-In” will be

 fishing on a different boat. “Magnifico,” is a 60’ Spencer owned by Renegades’ co-owner and Anetik Performance co-founder Garrett Frazier. The boat is based down here in Los Cabos and is currently competing in the Bisbee’s tournament with some special guests on board: Jaselyn and Toby Berthelot of Mississippi Blues Angling Club.

Lights Out Boston brought their 62’ Viking down to Cabo. It arrived a few weeks ago, and the crew has been pre-fishing ever since the boat was offloaded in La Paz. 

“We had to hustle to make that all happen,” said Angler Rob Carmichael, the boat’s owner. “Literally after Labor Day Weekend we just made the call.”

As part of their pre-fishing experience, we learned from SFC color commentator and three-time World Sailfish Champion Peter Miller that Lights Out released 30 striped marlin yesterday. Miller ended up going out with the Atlantic Division champions to get a feel for the conditions in advance of the tournament and shoot an episode of his show, Uncharted Waters with Peter Miller, which airs on Discovery.

Lights Out will be staying in Cabo for the winter season and came prepared for an extended stay regardless of the outcome. 

“Four oil changes worth of gear, tons of fuel filters because we don’t know what we’re going to find,” Carmichael said. “All the stuff you need for your floating condo as well as all the mechanical stuff to keep the boat running, and then fishing: We had 6,000 yards of fluorocarbon, 4,000 hooks just trying to get provisioned.”

Lights Out Boston’s inventory list is just missing one thing from sounding like an old MasterCard commercial: “One Zane Grey Championship Trophy: Priceless.” 

The New Jersey Sea Birds are flying private and their first stop prior to checking in at Corazon will be to the marina and Pisces Sportfishing to meet their battle wagon for the weekend. Pisces has been chartering in Cabo since this town’s humble beginnings as a quiet fishing village. We caught up with Rebecca Ehrenberg of Pisces Sportfishing, who mentioned that their charters have caught and released more than 8,400 billfish in the past calendar year. With a 95% release rate, that success pairs nicely with a squad that has been on an absolute tear this season, placing in 14 of the 16 combined tournaments they have competed in this year.

“They already know the lay of the land, they’re gonna show us the fish, hopefully right away,” said Sea Birds Captain Blaine Birch. “We had the golden horseshoe this year, that’s for sure.” 

Birch and the Sea Birds are big believers in preparation inviting good fortune. 

“We’re all just average weekend warrior guys, going out there having some fun,” Birch said. 

Arguably, any club that wins at Walker’s Cay, the White Marlin Open and places second in Oak Bluffs are professionals whether they choose to use the title or not. Fishing is not their day job, which is what keeps the Birds hungry.

“You should see us on a lay day, everybody has their computers set up: We have computers over here, computers over there, everyone’s on FaceTime calls or video calls,” Birch said. “It’s an office boat we like to call it.”

Out Of Office has been set for everyone before the flight.

Their nest for the weekend is “Reels & Dirt,” a 72’ Viking enclosed bridge, and the largest sportfishing boat of the Pisces Fleet. 

The Texas Lone Stars are fishing with friends in Cabo San Lucas. With more than three years of fishing residency under their belt and owning a slip in the Cabo Marina, the Lone Stars are effectively the home team for the Zane Grey Championship Playoffs. 

“We’re been fishing with a friend of mine and he’s been down there a bunch,” said Lone Stars Captain Spencer Johnson. “We have a lot of friends down there and are getting a lot of reports.”

It’s hard to not look at Johnson and the Lone Stars, runners-up of the Gulf Division as the favorites given their history down here. 

“We’ve had a lot of really good days right out front of Cabo,” Johnson said. “We’ve had some days where 25 miles out of the marina we’ve had 100 bites.”

A day like that could help put the cherry on top of what would be an incredible comeback story. The Lone Stars were sitting in sixth place in the divisional standings after the first quarter of the season. Once reunited with their boat “Freebird,” a 65’ Paul Mann custom that went through an accelerated refit, their fortune changed. 

The Lone Stars are the only club out of the four-team field that has not won at least one tournament this year. That may change come Monday evening, given the style of fishing they’re experienced in and how well it pairs with the fishery. 

“You know as soon as you put the boat in gear after releasing one there’s more,” Johnson said.

Winning the Numbers Game

Cabo is known for tremendous numbers of billfish caught and released in a single day. The scoring system will have an addition to it for this weekend, given the change in location.

SFC Points Scoring for the Zane Grey Championship Playoffs 
Black Marlin & Blue Marlin: 450 Points
Striped Marlin: 100 Points
Pacific Sailfish: 75 Points

“Lines-In” Premieres Saturday on ESPN 

Join us on Saturday from 5:00PM-8:00PM ET on the all-new ESPN App for the premiere of “Lines-In,” SFC’s pre-tournament show, with hosts Robbie Floyd and Peter Miller live on-location from Corazon Cabo Resort & Spa with a number of special guests. 

Stay tuned for more updates from Cabo San Lucas prior to Sunday’s shotgun start.