Tournament is finished, declining participation.

https://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/local/poco-bueno-cancels-because-of-declining-participation/article_c5544e34-6b8f-11e9-b375-d347ea59edb7.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=user-share

When you cancel the tournament and don't refund entry fees it's not too shocking that participation declined afterwards

Really sad. End of an era. Lots of big money in that tourney.

Some crazy stories too.

Here.

I am confused...

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All entry and Mano-y-Mano payments made by participants will be fully refunded, according to an email Fondren IV sent to registered participants about 2 p.m. Tuesday.

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Wow, really......

ttha_aggie_09 said:

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I am confused...

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All entry and Mano-y-Mano payments made by participants will be fully refunded, according to an email Fondren IV sent to registered participants about 2 p.m. Tuesday.

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I'm assuming he is talking about the weather cancellation they had few years back.

ttha_aggie_09 said:

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I am confused...

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All entry and Mano-y-Mano payments made by participants will be fully refunded, according to an email Fondren IV sent to registered participants about 2 p.m. Tuesday.

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They've cancelled offshore divisions in the past due to high seas and not refunded the entry fees. Some of these boats are traveling hundreds of miles in addition to what they paid to get in

Gotcha. I figured it was something else but had no clue... that's pretty crappy.

it's a real shame, that's for sure.

An enterprising person should buy the rights to the name and run it to be profitable and attractive.

FIDO*98* said:

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When you cancel the tournament and don't refund entry fees it's not too shocking that participation declined afterwards

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This. The following year was nearly half the size and declined each year since.

I think they only cancelled a couple of times, like 7 years apart. I want to say in one of them they did refund some of the money, I am not sure about 2014 tournament though.

Several other factors as well probably led to it really diminishing. All things change I guess.

Late 80's and early 90's when I fished it, they should have cancelled it at least once, we took a big ass beating and that was before being able to overnight. The entry fees were dwarfed by the Calcutta money and the fuel bill of some of those boats running 150+ miles, to and from. I think the work in fishing some of these tournaments combined with the down turn in the price of oil made a big difference too.

It was sure wild and wooly way back.

Wow!! Used to go watch them weigh the fish almost every year when I was a kid. Stopped going in high school cause it got too crowded. I can't believe they killed poco bueno by being A-holes. People loved that tournament.

Sucks.

My lot in POC has a view that overlooks the tournament grounds. Was going to be a bad a rental for that week.

I've never been... But i had been led to believe that as the boats got bigger it was working a lot of the smaller (not as big boats) offshore guys out.

I fished is for many years and am familiar with the recent events. We had a house in Caracol and so we were right in the middle of it all for several years. In 2014, they did cancel the tournament and did not refund the tournament entry fees. I am sure they wished they had done things differently, but there are a couple of facts that get lost in the decision. The decision to cancel the tournament that year was not made unilaterally by the Fondren family. They got several of the boat owners that had been fishing POCO for many years together and they decided as a group to cancel it. I am sure they didn't want to beat their boats up and fight rough the rough seas. Regarding the money paid and possible refund, none of the entry fee money ever went to the boats as part of the prize winnings. The only money to be won from the tournament was the Mano-y-Mano money and all of that money was returned. In 2014 the tournament still continued to provide food and drinks and they still had the tent and the live band. All of those expenses were committed to whether the boats fished or not. In hindsight, I think the best option would have been to fish Saturday and Sunday because the weather was actually very nice those days but that's not the decision the Fondren family and boat owners made.

Also, the remaining unsold lots in Caracol has changed ownership and so there is new management there. My understanding is the new management wasn't too wild about POCO being there and so they may have wanted more money to host the tournament.

There is a lot more competition now and boat owners are keeping their boats and fishing tournaments in LA, MS, AL, and FL and so they never bring their boats as far west as Texas. I think this has an impact on the number of boats fishing POCO as well. These guys are keeping their boats in places like Destin where they can fish, their wives can hang out at a very nice beach and on guys' weekends they can chase split-tail. There is certainly not too much of that fun in any of the Texas ports.

Good summary and very valid reasoning. I grew up working on boats and even did so for several years after school. What you relate are all likely reasons for the cancellation of it, I haven't fished Poco in a long time, but know many that do and the mentality of that tournament is that if it couldn't be among the biggest of the big they probably weren't going to have it.

It is likely that Poco didn't have insurance to cover the costs of a cancelled tournament in 2014, and that insurance is very expensive. As you mentioned the entry fees only covered the booze and food and such and if that went on there is no reason to refund it, the prize money at Poco has always been the Calcutta money. In the last 20 years the liability of not "calling" a tournament at the signs of bad weather has gone up exponentially and I do not believe tournaments nowadays will take any kind of a risk. In the 80's we fished tournaments that should never have been fished. One Poco, maybe 88' or 89' was rough as hell on the first day and several boats were torn up, ours included. We cracked a salon window, layed the fridge in the galley over and had stress fractures on the bridge metal. It was easily, back then, about $4500 of damage and a PIA to deal with, never should have been fished, running out WFO at 1:00am was just stupid.

In Texas the big boat ownership appears to go through cycles, I have watched this for 35 years. A new boat owner will spend a few years getting enthralled with the local tournaments and fishing and such. Usually they will begin to travel and when that happens they will find out that the grass really is greener in many other places in terms of facilities, ease of fishing, amenities, and entertainment. As you mention, it appears the number of boats is down, the social demographic of the participants have changed, and it is just easier to fish other places.

Good summary and very valid reasoning. I grew up working on boats and even did so for several years after school. What you relate are all likely reasons for the cancellation of it, I haven't fished Poco in a long time, but know many that do and the mentality of that tournament is that if it couldn't be among the biggest of the big they probably weren't going to have it.

It is likely that Poco didn't have insurance to cover the costs of a cancelled tournament in 2014, and that insurance is very expensive. As you mentioned the entry fees only covered the booze and food and such and if that went on there is no reason to refund it, the prize money at Poco has always been the Calcutta money. In the last 20 years the liability of not "calling" a tournament at the signs of bad weather has gone up exponentially and I do not believe tournaments nowadays will take any kind of a risk. In the 80's we fished tournaments that should never have been fished. One Poco, maybe 88' or 89' was rough as hell on the first day and several boats were torn up, ours included. We cracked a salon window, layed the fridge in the galley over and had stress fractures on the bridge metal. It was easily, back then, about $4500 of damage and a PIA to deal with, never should have been fished, running out WFO at 1:00am was just stupid.

In Texas the big boat ownership appears to go through cycles, I have watched this for 35 years. A new boat owner will spend a few years getting enthralled with the local tournaments and fishing and such. Usually they will begin to travel and when that happens they will find out that the grass really is greener in many other places in terms of facilities, ease of fishing, amenities, and entertainment. As you mention, it appears the number of boats is down, the social demographic of the participants have changed, and it is just easier to fish other places.

Aggiebrewer said:

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queso1 said:

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An enterprising person should buy the rights to the name and run it to be profitable and attractive.

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I said the same thing about the dirty sock

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We're waiting....

Glad it got cancelled. Too crowded as it is.

RGV AG said:

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Good summary and very valid reasoning. I grew up working on boats and even did so for several years after school. What you relate are all likely reasons for the cancellation of it, I haven't fished Poco in a long time, but know many that do and the mentality of that tournament is that if it couldn't be among the biggest of the big they probably weren't going to have it.

It is likely that Poco didn't have insurance to cover the costs of a cancelled tournament in 2014, and that insurance is very expensive. As you mentioned the entry fees only covered the booze and food and such and if that went on there is no reason to refund it, the prize money at Poco has always been the Calcutta money. In the last 20 years the liability of not "calling" a tournament at the signs of bad weather has gone up exponentially and I do not believe tournaments nowadays will take any kind of a risk. In the 80's we fished tournaments that should never have been fished. One Poco, maybe 88' or 89' was rough as hell on the first day and several boats were torn up, ours included. We cracked a salon window, layed the fridge in the galley over and had stress fractures on the bridge metal. It was easily, back then, about $4500 of damage and a PIA to deal with, never should have been fished, running out WFO at 1:00am was just stupid.

In Texas the big boat ownership appears to go through cycles, I have watched this for 35 years. A new boat owner will spend a few years getting enthralled with the local tournaments and fishing and such. Usually they will begin to travel and when that happens they will find out that the grass really is greener in many other places in terms of facilities, ease of fishing, amenities, and entertainment. As you mention, it appears the number of boats is down, the social demographic of the participants have changed, and it is just easier to fish other places.

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We fished it during those years as well and you are right....the first day we got beat the hell up and tore up stuff on the boat....the second day we said it just wasn't worth it and stayed in port, drank beer and partied.

Having been in the business for many years I have seen a lot of change in our fishing boat markets. Due to cost the large sportfishing boats sales have declined in Texas and southern Gulf Coast. This not only includes the 35-45 ft boats but also 28-35 foot boats with tri or quad powered outboards. These owners have changed to buying smaller twin powered boats or flats boats and having more fun fishing and catching.
Instead of the high associated cost of going 45 - 80 miles offshore with an expensive big boat burning tons of fuel, insurance cost, maintenance cost, etc and spending two hard days of fishing on a week end, with most of that time spent getting out there and back, they are getting smaller boats, having a blast fishing in the flats and coming in at noon to eat and drink and relax with the ladies and kids and then going out again in the evening.
As with general aviation evolving over the last ten years or so.....the same is true for boats.....if you have enough money to own a large Hatteras or Bertram sportfisherman then those above cost probably don't matter, however lots of "normal" guys who used to own a sportfishing vessel or large center console when they were affordable have been pushed out of the market and consequently have turned to more affordable rigs.
All segments of the fishing boat markets have experienced this. In 1995 I never would have thought that a new bass rig would cost $80,000 or more someday. Offshore products have seen that same change and it limits the people who can do it for sure.

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We fished it during those years as well and you are right....the first day we got beat the hell up and tore up stuff on the boat....the second day we said it just wasn't worth it and stayed in port, drank beer and partied.

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I don't know if it is bad luck or what, but I think the 4 times I fished it, and I was a hired hand so the requirements were more than being a participant, the weather just sucked for at least one of the days and in a couple of cases both of them.

That deal in 89' was just bad, that never should have been fished. If I remember correctly there were several injuries, a captain on one boat severely broke his arm and a hand on another busted up his teeth real bad and I think an owner on another boat had some kind of back injury. I got launched off the bridge ladder and went straight down onto my knees on the non-skid and slid into the transom combing pads, tore my knees up and with the slime they took a long time to heal.

I was asked to go a few other times and while the party and such was great, I was making enough money at a real job that I just didn't want to go through the Poco BS again.

One of the years there was an incredible amount of cabbage heads in POC, we ended up in a slip near the TPW docks and they would be blown into it by the ton. Our sea strainers on the A/C were getting clogged about every 30 to 45 minutes and I ended up having to get in and clear them for about 3 nights, got stung and slimed like a SOB. We ended up drilling holes in a big tupperware deal running a rope through it and fixing it over the strainer, and still got clogged. I was exhausted, stung to hell, and still had to fish. It was miserable. After that mess I never woke up when we pulled out and didn't wake up until we hit the SPI jetties after leaving.

DDP