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The 2025 18th annual BD Outdoors Yellowtail Shootout has
come to a close, and it was a tournament to remember! Anglers from all
over Southern California came to compete in this exciting fishing
tournament, hoping to catch the biggest yellowtail in the waters off the
San Diego coast.
The tournament which began in the early hours on Saturday (June 21st)
morning, was filled with excitement and anticipation. Greeted with less
than ideal weather conditions, our teams set out hoping to find the
right zone to pull out the winning fish. We want to thank all of our
teams for enduring the wind and putting together some great bags of
fish. As the day wore on, the weigh stations were abuzz with activity,
as anglers brought in their catches to be weighed.
Although the bite wasn’t wide open, there was certainly no lack of
fish seen by our competing teams. This year, the biggest yellowtail
caught in the tournament was a massive homeguard coming in at 36.6
pounds!
The 2025 Yellowtail Shootout saw 63 boats and 218 anglers compete for
the trophy. Another massive thank you to all of our anglers and great
sponsors who helped fill the awards ceremony stage with phenomenal
prizes and raffle items! We were ecstatic with the excitement and
enthusiasm from all of our competitors throughout this past weekend and
we can’t wait to run it back next year. For the full results from this
years tournament, see below.
2025 Yellowtail Shootout Payouts
1st Place “Presented by Costa Del Mar”
Team 52 – Elle J with a bag weight of 94.0 pounds and collects $3150 dollars and
the following prizes: Costa Sunglasses for the whole team, A
Rainshadow Rod Made by M&M Custom Rods (you choose color and
components. The winner, not you Todd), Dexter Dextreme 3-Knife Fillet
Kit & Hat, a Morita Gaff, AFTCO Multitool, FishDope 1-yr Gift
Certificate, Everingham Bait Brothers 1/2 scoop of bait, Custom Engraved
One Cool Tuna 4 Gold Jig, Deckhand 60″ Kill Bag, 2 YETI Yonder Bottles,
YETI Flask Blue, AFTCO Saiko Pro Fluoro, Grundens Wayward Roll Top 38L
Backpack, YETI GoBox 30 and a Starbrite boat cleaning kit with deck
brush. They also covered the board and took down all the jackpots. $100 Jackpot for $2,380, $200 Jackpot for $3,060 and the $300 Jackpot for $4,335. Elle J will take home $16,070 in cash.
2nd Place- “Presented by FishDope”
Team 3 – FORK N TAIL with a bag weight of 48.7 pounds and collects $1575 dollars and
the following prizes: A Dexter Dextreme 3-Knife Fillet Kit & Hat,
YETI Camino Carryall, AFTCO Multitool, FishDope 1-yr Gift Certificate,
Everingham Bait Brothers 1/2 scoop of bait, Custom Engraved One Cool
Tuna 4 Gold Jig, YETI Hopper Flip Cooler, Deckhand 48″ Kill Bag, AFTCO
Saiko Pro Fluoro, 2 pairs of Costa Sunglasses , 2 YETI Yonder Bottles,
Grundens Bootlegger Roll Top 30L Backpack, AFTCO Titan Net and a
Starbrite boat cleaning kit with deck brush.
We made progress with the Fish & Game Commission this week regarding Sandbass bag limits. Until we can put a more formal process together, I'm requesting help from all recreational anglers that when you catch sandbass, you put them on your measuring board and take a pic and send those to me with the general area caught. All sizes count, especially small ones. We need the data for our sandbass fight. Please spread the word! Thanks.
Wayneksd@gmail.com
Also, Any help spreading the word would be appreciated! Thanks
Outcry grows over questionable “vitamin tuna” treatment process
The
increasingly common process is used to make low-grade tuna appear to be
of a higher quality through a mixture of chemicals and gas treatments
that often go unlabeled.
A whistleblower video sent to SeafoodSource showing the vitamin tuna manufacturing process.
Yellowfin and bigeye tuna steaks and loins sold across the United States – and likely Europe and other markets –
are increasingly probable to be tainted with unlisted ingredients,
including citric acid, beet extract, and sodium, according to three
global seafood executives.
Up to 60 percent of yellowfin tuna steaks exported from Vietnam undergo a process through which they are
injected with a saline solution and then bathed in a mixture of beet
juice, paprika, and additives like sodium ascorbate and ascorbic acid.
After this, they are treated with carbon monoxide or a tasteless, or
clear, smoke. The process vastly improves the coloration of
lower-grade tuna and gives the product an added water weight that can
increase its value by 15 to 20 percent, the executives said.
“More
and more, it's becoming common practice, specifically for companies
using lower-grade raw material like purse-seine tuna,” Sea Delight
President Cesar Bencosme told SeafoodSource. “As far as we’re aware,
none of these ingredients are illegal to use; you just need to declare
it on the label. That’s not really being done. We strongly recommend end
users add sodium, nitrate, and citric acid to their internal testing
protocol for tuna items."
Bencosme said Sea
Delight, a major importer of frozen and fresh tuna based in Coral
Springs, Florida, U.S.A., has raised the issue publicly because the
company has an obligation of transparency to uphold.
“I would even say even some of the smaller
importers might not even know they're getting tuna treated with citric
acid since they don't have the ability to go overseas and get more
information or know what their suppliers are doing,” Bencosme said.
“It’s about being transparent. If you're going to do something like
this, sell it for what it is.”
Miami,
Florida, U.S.A.-based importer Seafarers is also speaking out about
what it has termed “dishonest methods” that mask low-grade tuna “with a
concoction of chemical compounds and gas treatments.”
“It's
critical to distinguish between legitimate processes that preserve the
authenticity of high-quality tuna and the alarming practice of treating
subpar frozen tuna,” the company said in a statement. “Shockingly, our
team in Vietnam has witnessed how various suppliers are engaging in a
disturbing process involving soaking inferior thawed tuna in a mixture
comprising sodium ascorbate, ascorbic acid, sodium tripolyphosphate
(STPP), and sodium bicarbonate. These additives play a crucial role in
increasing the weight of the tuna while maintaining desired moisture
levels, resulting in a substantial net weight increase ranging from 12
percent to 18 percent, varying across different processing facilities.”
Moreover,
according to Seafarers – which is one of the largest American importers
of tuna – color additives like PROVIV 1200 containing beet juice
concentration, salt, and paprika oleoresin, are employed to artificially
enhance the appearance of these lower-quality tuna loins, misleading
consumers into believing they are purchasing higher-grade products.
“The
repercussions of these practices are dire. Despite a 41 percent drop in
tuna exports to the U.S. during the first nine months of 2023, these
misrepresented products are flooding the market, disrupting prices, and
misleading consumers about the actual quality of the tuna they're
purchasing," Seafarers said.
Seafarers President
Willy Rosell said his biggest concern regarding what has become known
as “vitamin tuna” for its use of ascorbic acid, or vitamin C, is that
the safety and suitability of these products for human consumption
remain in question.
“Consumers aren’t
being told what’s in their tuna; even we don’t know what’s in it, and
we’ve done lab testing,” Rosell told SeafoodSource. “People with
allergies or who don’t want all that extra sodium are not being told
that’s what they’re consuming. Besides that, it tastes very strange. I’m
worried it’s going to hurt the reputation of tuna in the marketplace.”
Sea
Delight said it’s mostly Vietnamese processors who are exporting
“vitamin tuna,” estimating more than 25 percent of all yellowfin tuna
exported from Vietnam has gone through the process. Because it can
“easily equal 15 to 20 percent extra value” on every case due to the
added water content, Indonesian, Thai, and Malaysian exporters are also
beginning to adopt the practice, Bencosme said.
“If
I'm buying something at USD 4.50 [EUR 4.18], my competitors who are
buying the ‘vitamin tuna’ might be paying USD 0.50 to USD 0.60 [EUR 0.46
to EUR 0.56] less for that same shave cut,” he said.
Rosell
said the tests Seafarers has conducted on “vitamin tuna” samples show
16 to 18 percent of its total weight comprises water and other
additives.
“It’s pricing the
companies doing the right thing out of the market,” he said. “On top of
that, they’re using tuna of very questionable quality. It’s very
blackish in color; it looks like it was in a bad cooler on a boat for 20
days.”
Rosell said the vitamin tuna
began infiltrating the market around 12 to 14 months ago, and since
then, prices for frozen yellowfin tuna loins and steaks from Vietnam
have come down to around USD 2.50 [EUR 2.32] per pound. But, Seafarers
refuses to accept the vitamin tuna and pays USD 4.00 to USD 5.00 [EUR
3.72 to EUR 4.65] per pound.
“I'm worried for
our company because our customers are seeing tuna for a lot cheaper than
we offer it; eventually, we’re going to lose business due to this,” he
said.
The senior executive of a
Vietnamese tuna exporter is also worried about the future of her
business. Yen Nguyen, an overseas manager for Hong Ngoc Seafood, said
the process was pioneered around five years ago.
“We
noticed a difference in the tuna; we could taste and smell something
different. The color was pretty good, but the taste and texture was not
there,” she said. “It was clear that something bad was going on, but we
didn’t want to say anything until we did tests to prove [it].”
The
company ran extensive tests over three years and posed as a European
buyer, making inquiries to other Vietnamese tuna exporters about their
processes. Over three years, Hong Ngoc was able to identify most of the
additives, and through experimentation, it found the combination of
citric acid, beet juice, and CO treatment – which is legal in the U.S.
if labeled but illegal to sell in Europe – gives even bad-quality tuna a
vibrant red coloration.
Nguyen estimates 60 percent of tuna exported from Vietnam and other countries now undergoes the vitamin treatment.
“Most
importers just don't know about it,” she said. “But now, a lot of
importers ignore the problem. They must know about it because it is so
widespread, and word is out [about it].”
Nearly
all tuna exporters have adopted the process, some reluctantly, because
it’s what they need to do to remain competitive, Nguyen said.
“Of
course on the business side, they want and need to have a profit, so
they do what the customer wants,” she said. “We choose the harder way
[of not doing it], and I sleep better at night, but it is making it
really difficult for our company. I am afraid the whole tuna industry is
turning in this bad direction.”
