I just got back from Panama…What an incredible trip with Pesca Panama!
I fished with Doug Olander from Sportfishing Magazine, Ben Secrest from Accurate, George Large from Normark ( Rapala/Williamson). Joining us as well were European professional fisherman, Nicola Zingerelli from Spain (owner of
carnx.com) and Hideyuki Kitamura (Charmas) and his companion and translator Setsu Hamanaka. Charmas is a true master of traditional Japanese jig fishing. This guy is the real deal and he proved his mastery to us time and time again. His companion Setsu is a well know wildlife artist and in my opinion a top jig fishermen in his own right. Those of you who know Doug, Ben and George, they are also expert fishermen who have fished all over the world.
To make a long story short, despite my many years of fishing experience, all of these guys are way more knowledgeable and skilled than me. Over all it was a great learning experience. Everyone was very cool about sharing information. Needless to say we had more than a few laughs.
The beauty of a trip like this is that it is not all about skill. A heavy does of shit house luck has always served me well and this trip was no different. Time and time again, my primitive fishing skills, stubbornness and luck provided me ample opportunity to catch some great fish. The highlight or low point depending on how you look at it as an hour long standoff with a 120+ pound Yellow Fin Tuna on heavy spinning tackle.
Catching a nice tuna on two speeds and a harness can be tough; but make no mistake, on a spinning rod with 25 pounds of drag and a 6:1 gear ratio and no harness in 90 degree equatorial sun was a humbling and quite painfull experience for this Eskimo. We did get the fish in and I felt fortunate to not catch another that size for the rest of the trip.
Fishing overall was good but not usually wide open, the main idea was to get a bunch of experienced jig fishermen from all over to meet in Panama and fish almost exclusively with jigs for whatever we could catch. We did see some double and triple hook ups but more often it was one at a time.
The weather ranged from hot and sunny to several days of torrential downpours. We did catch plenty of fish every day on jigs and poppers and even when the weather was shitty we caught some great fish on the lee side of Coiba Island in very shallow water. It seems that the Pelagic fish will move right up in to the shallows as we hooked a 25 pound Dorado in 20 feet of water and also caught African Pompano, Rainbow Runners, Roosters, Jacks and Trevelly of all types as well as Pargo in the shallows. We also saw a big black marlin detonate on a dodo in 155 feet of water near Montoso Island. Sent it tumbling across the top of the water.
I think we ended up catching 24 different species on jigs and we (George) was rocked/ broke off several times by some very large cubera and broomtails. The last day I threw a popper into the rocks near the river mouth and a monster Cubera boiled on my popper, we all agreed that it looked like a rusty VW bug as it swam back to it’s home.
Overall I would say that Pesca Panama should be on your must fish list. I love PV and Cabo but this area in Panama is so full of life and there are so few boats fishing it, if you can you really should go. Needless to say that there is plenty of “exciting” nightlife in Panama City. I sampled a little bit of it which resulted in a long, long plane ride back to Alaska….
I will let the photos speak for themselves…
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