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Some time ago now I got chatting with Pierre from the Panafishing lodge about hosting a trip out at his lodge in Pedasi, which is around a 5 hour drive from Panama City. It’s a destination that’s always appealed to me for a variety of reasons – one of which being the fact that there are a lot of species that are regularly caught there that I’ve never even seen (let alone caught) before such as Cubera Snapper, Rooster Fish and Broomtail Grouper. But to add to that, it’s a really intriguing country and also somewhere that I could conceivably beat my PB Yellowfin Tuna. So it’s safe to say, I didn’t need much convincing.

We arrived in Panama City at various times during last weekend and after an exceptional steak and ‘a few quiet beers’, called it a night before Pierre’s driver collected us on Sunday morning. With a 5 hour drive ahead of us and loads of excitement all-round, the drive did (as you may expect) become a bit of a fiesta, but by the time we had depleted most of the road-side stores between Panama City and Pedasi of cervesa and shared many a fishing story, we arrived at the lodge in time to ready our kit and enjoy (one of many) delicious dinners prepared by the Panafishing team.

The lodge itself definitely met the high expectations we had after all the positive reviews we’d read, and with the hot weather the pool was certainly a welcome feature.

As we prepared our kit, we got chatting with Pierre about the week ahead including the expected weather. Unfortunately (as seems to be the norm for me!) the wind forecast was on the high side, with day 1 and day 5 of the trip looking to be the calmest days. With that in mind, we decided to spend the first day heading out wide in search of the big Yellowfin that Panama is known for.

After a bacon and egg fryup in the morning we began our steam out to find the fish, covering around 25 miles before we started to see the telltale signs of tuna activity. When we did find the fish however, it seemed that we were a bit late to the party. A number of other local boats were on the school using bait, and we didn’t have any luck with our lures as the fish had already become a bit skittish. So by 11am, we still hadn’t managed a strike. At this point we decided to leave this vast school, and head off in search of action elsewhere. Not long after, we found it. For the next few hours we encountered smaller schools of fish, but with a nice average size. The dolphins rather than the birds would give them away, and as long as you could place your cast near the dolphin school you were effectively guaranteed a Yellowfin. Without the other boats around, this became easy fishing!

I was first up, and the moment that the glorious slab of yellow exploded upon my Temple Reef Tuna 80 popper, I was reminded why I love topwater fishing so much. There’s just nothing else like it, and after a few months’ hiatus it was great to be back in the fray. It was about half way through that fight (when I was still feeling the effects of the last night’s festivities) that I was also reminded that these fish are no joke on a casting rod, and as I worked in the heat to try and pump the fish out of his circles deep under the boat I vowed to (at least attempt) to be less enthusiastic in my assault on Pierre’s bar that night.

 But, nice fish landed for the photo, and now it was Eric’s turn to get tight. Here he is getting taken to pain town on another great yellow.

Very shortly after my fish and then Eric’s were landed, I was on again. I saw this fish leap from the water as it grabbed my popper and I knew I was in for a lot more pain. This thing was a horse, and it reminded me of that from the very begging to the very end of the fight. A huge prick of a thing, that seriously had me sweating. After much huffing and puffing I had the thing to the first glimpses of colour, when it decided to make a spirited run to the back of the boat. Despite my best efforts to scramble down to the stern in pursuit, it had my braid on the leg of the outboard, and won its freedom (and a shiny piece of Temple Reef jewellery in the process).

A demoralising experience for sure to struggle so hard and then lose the fish, but that’s fishing! Erin and Eric were having a good run on the fish and so it was time to cast again, this time with a Blaze Burn 50 sinking stickbait tied on to try out. I had been provided with a number of samples of these some time back, and as soon as I saw them I knew they’d be a winner. I wasn’t wrong! First cast into the dolphin pod and I was on to another tuna, a very nice fish and bigger than the first but I suspect not (as is the case with all ‘one that got away’ stories) as big as the mule that took my lure. Was thoroughly impressed with these lures over the course of the trip, and super happy that we’ll have a big stock of them available on Adventure Angler any day now.

As the afternoon rolled on and the wind started to increase, we began making our way back in nearer to the shore to hit up some jigging marks. I had set myself four key targets for this trip – being cubera snapper, rooster fish, pompano, new PB yellowfin and broomtail grouper, and it was really nice to be able to tick one of these off on the first day. Whilst by no means a beast, I took a nice broomtail on my FCL Labo SLZ jig, followed by all round action for the three of us on rat sized AJs which was a fun way to finish the day.

When we got back to the beach in the evening, we learnt that the English team had spent the day on two very BIG yellows. Although taken on bait, they were some serious fish. The pics do not do them justice but they were weighed at 180 and 226lbs respectively after they were unable to be revived after fight times of 2 hours for the first and over 3 hours for the second! A tough slog on casting gear for sure, and this pic is the smaller of the two.

Day 2 and the wind was up, so the call was made to hit the inshore. This day was pretty quiet for all boats, and I spent most of the day fishing the light tackle. I had taken a PE2 jigging setup in the form of a Temple Reef Mytho and Wiki Jigging 900H reel, and had a good time catching a variety of species including Jacks, a lot of silk snapper and also another of my target species – the Pompano – which gave a great fight on this light gear.

Day 3, and there was a serious storm coming through. Lots of rain was forecast, and some wind along with it. Definitely the worst weather for the trip, but fortunately that seemed to match up with the best fishing. Whilst the other boats had a slow day that day, the bite was on for us from the off. Casting in torrential rain and lightning was exciting at times, but we were soon rewarded when I had a hit on my Blaze Burn which I was casting in relatively deep (35m) water over a section of structure that came up to about 25 metres. I was fishing with PE5 gear and the fish pulled a bit of string on the first run which got my hopes up, but it ended up being one of several sierra mackerel taken for the trip whilst casting. Thankfully my lure was returned effectively unscathed by the teeth, and I resumed casting. Shortly afterwards I was in for a very different fight. After a strong take I set the hooks into something with a good bit of weight, which although not giving that first run of a makkie did slog it out the whole way to the boat, I was really stoked to see red come up through the water as my first Cubera was ticked off the list. Not a huge one by any means, but it gave me some serious respect for the fish and made me realise what sort of heavy gear (or luck) you’d need to land a big one on the cast given their preference for staying near structure.

After a morning of casting in the rain, the weather finally cleared and it was time to go for a jig. I’m not sure if it was the rain that day or what, but the fish had really fired up. We ended up with a red hot session including at least 25 jacks, 11 rooster fish, 3 broomtails and some other odds and sods. Persistence had definitely paid off! Special mention has to go to Erin’s sea monster that he hooked on an FCL Labo jig on his heavy jig outfit. This thing slugged it out on the bottom for a good 5-10 minutes without either party being able to win an inch of line going with max power, before the line decided it had had enough and parted ways. The skipper called it for a 50kg+ cubera or a huge broomtail, but I guess we’ll never know. A devastating loss, but it’s fish like those that keep us coming back.

Day 4, we decided to get in another session on the tuna before the local fishing tournament started on Friday (day 5) to try and avoid the boat traffic. Our plan paid off, as we reached the marks and saw only one other local boat out there. The tuna fishing was good, and we were straight into the fish. All of us caught, with me landing 5 and losing another 2 for the day. Infuriatingly one of those two was again lost boatside when (presumably armed with advice from its mate from day 1) it legged it for the engines and popped me off under the boat after we’d already got it to colour. This time, it made away with my Blaze lure, which annoyingly was my only one in the 50LS size. Nevermind, we’d had a great session and now it was time to try inshore for more roosters or cubera. Unfortunately today was a bit of a reversal for us in that respect, as it was our turn to have a slow inshore session whilst the Dutch boat killed it landing a dozen roosters and a small cubera also. Inshore for us was quiet, aside from the damn needlefish which were in plague numbers around one of the islands and which relieved me of two more of my lures.

Day 5 rolled around unbelievably quickly, and it was time for our final session of the trip. As forecast the weather that day was great, and the skipper decided to take us to a spot far along the coast for a try at some big inshore species. Not long out from the ramp we were greeted by a pod of humpbacks, which we followed for quite a while as they cruised slowly along the coast. Amazing animals to see up close. We didn’t land loads of fish that day, but in terms of the number of strikes we got on the cast from some nice sized fish it was definitely one of the better days in that respect. Some places like this island (which is the fishiest looking place I’ve never caught a fish) didn’t produce, but as we got further along the coast and started casting on some of the deeper spots we had a range of good fish on the cast including more makkies, tuna, jacks and rooster fish.

At one point on which we’d just had a couple of nice strikes including a rooster on the cast for Erin, I got a really nice strike. But something about this fight was different, and we soon learnt why! I saw a big silver slab of roosterfish come charging towards the boat. It looked like a great fish, but then the reason it was charging towards us became apparent as it was pack mauled to pieces by a swarm of dirty whaler sharks of some description. We hadn’t seen a single shark or had one fish sharked all week, but the moment I hook my best rooster and likely my best fish of the trip, they appear out of nowhere to tear it to shreds and take my last Blaze with it. F#cking sharks!!! I’m pretty sure they heard me insulting the bastards from the lodge that day. Sadly misadventure became a bit of a theme for the day, with Erin pulling the hooks on a couple of good roosters on the cast also.

And so the trip drew to a close (far too quickly) and we began the long voyage back home. Whilst I hadn’t caught any trophy sized fish I had ticked all my boxes aside from my PB Yellow, and there was definitely scope to do that there. We saw loads of big fish amongst the schools, it would just be a matter of landing enough small ones so that eventually you hooked a beast. For someone who has primarily focussed on GT destinations, it was great to do something totally different and in the process get exposure to very different species and very different styles of fishing that what I’ve done in the past, and it’s definitely a trip which I’d repeat.

Dan

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