Panama - an abundance of fishes

Just really to help build up content on the site I've included some details of Panama. And if I was to be pushed into identifying a favourite from all the places I've fished in the world it would have to be Panama - if for nothing else its sheer variety of species. Top of those have to be the Black Marlin and Roosterfish, but also the Cubera Snapper and, more of this later, Tarpon from the Pacific, and these are definitely Megalops atlanticus.

Any way there's a brief write up and some pictures on our Club's web site against this URL. Unfortunately many of the other pictures and reports are in a private, members only, section of the site. But I will 'cut and paste' a couple in a subsequent post.

Any rate the places and guides I've fished with - all Pacific side - and could recommend are as follows.

Tropic Star Lodge. A superb lodge surrounded by rain forest down near the Columbia border. Renowned for its Black Marlin on the fabled Zane Grey Reef and Sailfish, but also tremendous inshore fishing. Click here for their web site. As well as comprehensive catch reports there's some video footage of a huge Black that Guy Harvey took some underwater footage of.

Isla Coiba. A superb archipelago, some 40 miles offshore near the Costa Rican border. Here I've fished with an American skipper, Tom Yust and hooked, but never landed the Pacific Tarpon. You can literally hook and release a Black Marlin and then, within 20 minutes, be fishing for massive Roosterfish. Perhaps my favourite venue and you get a chance to fish the well known Hannibal Bank. Tom's web site is accessed by clicking here.

Then somewhat of a unique operation run by a larger than life American - Tony Herdon. His dad was an American Marine, his mother from a wealthy Panamanian family and he was educated in the UK. Now there's a mixture! Now Tony will offer a whole range of opportunities, all that start from Panama City. Here's the url of his web site. I've fished with Tony for the Peacock Bass in Lake Gatun - that surrounds the Panama Canal - also the Banayo River where the monster Tarpon and Snook (or should I ue the Spanish - Robalo?) are encountered. Tony's had Tarpon to 270lbs and Snook to nearly 50! (The Tarpon I hasten to add must have, over the past 100 years, migrated through the Panama Canal from the Atlantic.) As well as this, and something I intend to try possibly this year, is the popper fishing for Jacks and Snappers around the Perlas Islands in the Gulf of Panama.

Well there's a start!
Dave
Honorary Chairman
Sportfishing Club of the British Isles

Here're a couple of the promised reports, together with a note of the fishing season's relative to Isla Coiba. Sorry if they're a bit scrappy and refer to individuals or places that the guides, in writing, will have known I was familiar with. Hopefully it would interfere with their content too much.

And although the reports are spectacular please bear in mind that the fishing, although good, is NOT like that every day!
Dave

Fishing Seasons - Isla Coiba
This is taken, verbatim, from a note Tom Yust forwarded me. Tom operates a 31’ Bertram and 22’ Mako from Isla Coiba, some 80 miles from the Costa Rican border.

You know the fish are here year round however if you are targeting a particular species this guide will help. As you know fishing is never certain, some months which are normally slow will be red hot and sometimes when the Marlin should be there, it can be slow. The good thing about Coiba is there is always something to catch now matter what.

September - Still in the rainy season, super Wahoo fishing, roosters, Cubera Snapper and best chance for Pacific Tarpon. All the fish, which swim in the river mouths, are hot. The Wahoo school up around the islands Northwest of Coiba and off the south side of Jicarita.
Marlin, Sailfish & Tuna can be caught in inshore waters.

October - The ocean tends to be rougher, more rain but all offshore species are definitely in. Wahoo continue to be in abundance.

November - Rains begin to subside, the ocean can still be a bit rough at times. This is my favourite time for diversity. Many great days of catching fish after fish after fish. Big Dorado, lots of Sails, Blue & Black Marlins, Tuna….. everything and anything can hit. Excellent time for multiple sailfish.

December - Continues with great diversity and the dry season begins to set in. Time to really focus on Blacks. Wahoo begin to disperse but can still be found with regularity. Sailfish, Dorado, Tuna, Roosters, Cuberas, Amberjacks. Everything is good. Excellent month, very dependable.

January - More Blacks & Blues everything good. January through March are prime Black Marlin season. Jungle vegetation begins to lose some of it’s deep green. Winds especially calm.

February - Wahoo very hard to come across. This is a favourite month for most returning guests. You are almost guaranteed to have blue skies and Black Marlin. It can get a bit windy in some areas.

March - Just like January & February. Excellent fishing & weather although sometimes windy.

Rarely do we see seas over four feet.

April - Sometimes April comes in slow. The Black Marlin bite can be off and inshore fish can be hard to catch. April does see vast schools of skipjack tunas, a great baitfish. And possibly the Black Marlins are just out feeding off their regular haunts. This is when we see the biggest Tunas. A blessing to some and a curse to others. Regular catches of Tuna over 200 lb. and quite a few going in the 300 lb range. Trouble is, sometimes we hook up 3 or 4 at a time.

More Blue Marlin are caught further offshore in the skipjack bait schools. Good Pacific Blue Marlin time.

May - Sailfish, Sailfish, Sailfish. Everything else is a good possibility

June - Beginning of the rainy season. Cubera Snapper & Snook begin moving into the river mouths. Anything can be captured.
All through out the season Black Marlins can be caught. They live here and close to shore.

No matter which month it is, we always spend time fishing for Blacks. The fish here run larger than most places I am familiar with in Central America. (Nicaragua to Columbia) The normal fish will go 300 – 600 lb. Larger fish are caught commonly

report on the Perlas Island - Tony Herdon
This describes a trip Tony Herdon organised with two Massachusetts anglers during April 2001.

Ready for a 'no one will believe it" fish story? Well, it all started with a six day charter to Contadora island resort with a couple of guys from Situate, MA. These guys were veteran sportfishermen who knew how to fish and they had "come to play", but nothing could have prepared them for what was to come!

The fishing had been pretty good the few weeks up to that time in the Perlas Island area for all manner of big groupers, rockfish and snappers. The first couple of days out there, the weather was great, the water was still cold, but the bite was off. In fact, the biggest fish we managed to catch was a 28 pound pacific red snapper, plug casting to a bait boil in 60 feet of water. It was the biggest red snapper I had ever heard of, so we weighed and measured it and toyed with the idea of checking out the IGFA book.

The fishing on those first two days wasn't setting the world on fire so we left early the third day for San Jose Island about 30-40 miles further out where the new "Hacienda Del Mar" resort recently opened.

This new resort consists of 12 exclusive cabins, a 50,000 gallon waterfall stone pool, a clubhouse/ bar/restaurant all on a cliff overlooking the end of the world. San Jose is noted for its many deformed-looking, jagged, monstrous volcanic rock formations jutting up to 100 feet out of the sapphire blue ocean and pounding surf all around the island. These fantastic natural fish attracting formations, coupled with the beach spangled jungle coastline accented by clear sunny days tends to overawe first time visitors! It is the most breathtaking view imaginable! Fantasy Island does not compare!

In less than an hour we were plug casting off the north end of the island and hooking scores of really big fish. We had quite a few break offs with the spinning gear, but we still managed to catch several 20- 40 pound gamefish, mostly grouper and snapper. As we moved toward the south end of the island and Hacienda Del Mar resort, fishing the rocky points and near-shore volcanic surface-breaking seamounts on the way, the fishing became extraordinary. We were forced to go to 50 pound test stand-up outfits and mostly troll CD18 Rapalas and Yozuri Hydro Tigers with 5x strong hooks with the drags set at 20-25 pounds.

The fish were really big and hit like night bound freighters!

Each day the fish got bigger and the fishing better. So much so that the two MA Yankees didn't want to leave and extended their stay to 10 days, chartering a flight from the island directly to Panama's international airport on the day of their departure. They continued to catch more and bigger fish everyday - it just got better! These guys were not record seekers and were more interested in sport catching big fish on rod and reel than cutting off sections of line, filling out forms, hunting up certified scales and notary publics in a remote third world area. If they had been record seekers, weighing and processing their catches accordingly they would have set several All Tackle and Line Class IGFA records.

Highlights of what they caught that were weighed and measured are:
Pacific Red Snapper - 28 pounds (all tackle is 12lb 12 oz.)
Greenbar Snapper - 23 & 27 pounds (All Tackle is 21 lb 2 oz.)
Silk Snapper - 21 pounds (All Tackle is 18 lb 5 oz.)
Broomtail Grouper - biggest at 98 pounds, others big ones were 38, 42, 62 and several under 35 pounds that were released. (All Tackle is 100lbs)
Pacific cubera snapper - biggest at 77 pounds and they caught 5 over 40 pounds - 52, 63, 68, 77 & 44 pounds.(All Tackle is 78lbs.2oz. but the 50 pound line class is 68 pounds 10 oz.)

Well to make a long story short they lost almost all the lures they brought and 6 of my biggest Rapalas and Yozuris to fish that we can only assume were bigger than those landed! This was some exciting, out of this world fishing!

Isla Coiba
However, just to whet your appetites further I've included part of an e-mail I subsequently received from Tom that reinforces my comments about the area's potential.
'
You remain the only guy to hook a Tarpon this year, I wonder what the fishing is like off that beach now, with the seasonal change. Mostly I have been fishing the islands north and northwest of Coiba because the action is so good up there we haven’t taken the time to fish the regular spots further on down.

Mid March through April was the best Marlin fishing I have ever seen in my life (Bobby said the same). Off Montuosa one day, after fishing a couple hours we came across an enormous school of bonito (Black Skipjack), maybe a mile wide and long. We stayed with the school and had several Marlin strikes but landed three good Blacks. The next day we went back to the same spot west of Montuosa and found the school again this time we landed six Blues & Blacks and lost few as well. We took a day off to change over new guests and went back to Montuosa. That day we landed six Blacks & Blues again. The following day we went back to our spot and the bonito were still there. Well guess what… We landed seven that day.

Those two guests went on to have the best week of the year, they landed two Yellowfin over 300lbs and another day they landed 27 sailfish. They asked me if it was always like this here!'

Really just to illustrate some of the inshore action around the Coiba archipelago I have included a link showing pictures of a Spanish angler's trip. You'll see he really enjoys fishing with surface poppers and jigging.

I've found yet another report. It's well worth viewing just to see the size of the Cubera Snapper caught on a surface popper. And its TEETH! Here's the URL.

There is though a picture on our Club web site of one, possibly BIGGER! I'll find it and post later.