Half scoop:
Just got back from Panama with Tony and it was great fishing! We used
poppers, Butterfly jigs and live bait for roosters (up to 80 lbs.), cubera snapper (to 60
lbs.), amberjack, pargo lisa, yellowfin tuna and other types. Fished from a 31’ Bertram
from Cebaco Bay Sportfishing Club east of Coiba Island.
Full scoop:
Flew Continental from San Diego to Houston then Panama City. Everything arrived on
schedule including rods/reels (haven’t had a problem with checked bags in years).
Overnighted at Hotel Veneto and drove 4 hours to Puerto Mutis with John Shyne of
Panama Yacht Tours the next morning. Stopped to pick up some margarita stuff, rum and
chivas even though there is a bar on the 115’ Cebaco Bay mothership. The Bertram
“Extreme” was waiting for us. It was my first trip to Cebaco and Tony’s fourth. After
about an hour run we got to this calm, idyllic bay where the mothership was anchored.
Other boats included the 47’ Buddy Davis yacht “Aguja” and some 26’ pangas.
Tony and John rigged tackle with about six crew guys helping out, laughing and having a
good time. I checked out the air conditioned ship with staterooms, galley and DVD
lounge all air conditioned. Yeah, I could stay here for a week! Real comfortable with
great people. At sunset we had margaritas on the fantail interrupted by too many baitfish
called cojinua (green jacks) taking our four-fly jigs. A couple of guys took over the bait-
making for us as we relaxed and watched dark thunder clouds build over the beautiful
rainforest. Early June marks the beginning of the wet season usually with afternoon
thunderstorms. I think we only had to wear rain gear on one day but you could see storms
most of the time.
Tony fished here in February and the water was blue/green with black marlin, yellowfin
and all the inshore fish biting well. Now it was green/brown because of run-off but we
found great roosterfish action in the brown water at river mouths. Tony and John cast
poppers, usually GT Bulls and Habs Custom Plugs, to the beach and rocks while I slow-
trolled a live bait (popping is a lot of work and even harder with three people on the
stern!) Sometimes they would hook a good roosterfish, cubera or jack crevalle but my
first rooster was a 50 lb’er that ate the cojinua with a 9/0 circle hook on a Torsa 20 and
Trevala rod. That was my favorite set-up all week. We caught three more roosters over
40 lbs. and thought we had a great day until Capt. Jim Wiese (owner of Cebaco Bay)
radioed in to say they just released an 80 lb. rooster on a live cojinua just outside the bay!
It seems they finished some maintenance work on the “Aguja” at about 3:30 pm and
wanted to check it out. They brought along some of the live bait “just to have something
to do”. By four they had the rooster and finished up with a broomtail grouper and cubera
snapper. We were about 20 miles out around the Tuna Coast and they were doing just as
well within sight of the mothership! We said we wanted to see that rooster and Jim said
they didn’t bring a camera – Tony said “B.S. without photos!” That was the topic that
night! Actually we all believed Jim and his crew because they are real straight-shooters.
After the long days of fishing (just about from sunrise to sunset if you wanted to fish that
long) and a hot shower I made some custom margaritas to go with fresh yellowfin
sashimi (we brought a tube of wasabi but they had all that stuff onboard) and other
snacks. For dinner we usually had fresh cubera snapper (great!) from the grill, grouper
and other fish as well as steaks, chops and ribs barbeque style with rice, beans, vegetables
and tasty sauces Panamanian style. Hot buttered popcorn usually appeared while
watching a DVD in the lounge (if you go bring some extra DVD’s to leave on the
mothership – they will appreciate it) followed later by ice cream or cake. You can’t rough
it here! Everyone is friendly and the service is great.
Bait was easy to make the whole week and we had good action with about every way you
could fish. Tony said the popping wasn’t as good as usual because of the water conditions
but we still caught roosters, pargo lisa (mullet snapper), yellowfin tuna, jack crevalle, etc.
Live bait was definitely the best thing to have this week and I caught 14 roosters with
four between 40 and 55 lbs. (I lost some bigger ones, too). Most of the best fishing was a
few miles east of Punta Mariato where you start to see waterfalls coming out of the jungle
spilling onto the beach and near a few river mouths. Another 30 miles or so east is the
Pedasi area of the Tuna Coast where there are towns, panga fleets and hotels. Where we
fished we never saw another boat in five days – very remote and rugged part of the coast.
It gets deep here fast (the 1,000 fathom line is just three miles out) and there are black
and blue marlin, big yellowfin tuna, wahoo, sailfish and dorado if you can stop popping
and jigging for awhile! The photos include some black marlin from Tony’s last trip as
well as from this trip.
Sabrina Peña
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