Jan/2017 Panama Fishing Report - Sport Fish Panama Island Lodge

Jan/2017 Panama Fishing Report – We hosted 2 groups on the island and fished a few day charters out of nearby Boca Chica here at Sport Fish Panama Island Lodge the month of January 2017. Most of the clients came looking for their shot at a Marlin but for some reason the fish didn’t really want to cooperate! We had some nice blue water, cool water temps, smooth seas (except one) and lots of bait around. But out of the 9 days we fished we didn’t see any Marlin. We did however have some good consolation action with the Roosterfish, Cubera Snappers, African Pompanos, Almaco Jacks, Yellowfin Tunas, Sailfish and deep dropping!

Ramzy and his son Zee from Portland, Oregon stayed with us for 3 nights and fished 2 days while Mom hung out and relaxed on the island. These guys got lucky as it started out slow on the first day but we came across a pod of feeding Porpoises that sure enough had Tunas hanging around them….and they got a couple of real nice Yellowfin Tunas on live baits! On the second day we had a bit of luck at our inshore spots but offshore was slow so we tried our hand deep dropping for the first time with our brand new Hooker Electric reel. The first drop to a spot down 700 feet we come up with 4 ten pound Snowy Groupers! One on each hook! The next drop….same thing! I like this deep dropping and so does Chef Lee. We got plenty of Grouper fillets for the freezer as well! The Hooker Electric Reel is one bad ass piece of equipment!! Stay tuned for future reports as we will be incorporating deep drop into our fishing repertoire. There are some spots I can’t wait to hit!

Jack and Matt from Florida fished for one day with Captian Tatin on the “Scandalous” out of Boca Chica. These guys two day trip got cut short unfortunately as the infamous “norte” wind started to blow pretty hard. Each year between January-March we occasionally get a wind event that happens suspiciously around the full moon….the wind blows hard out of the north…hence the name “norte”. Anyway…they couldn’t get offshore because of wind causing the rough seas but they did get a few nice African Pompanos and Rock Snappers inshore. Capt. Tatin is definitely a jigging specialist! Thanks for being good sports guys!

Jan/2017 Panama Fishing Report con’t – Next…we fished 2 consecutive days on the “T.O.P. Cat” doing day charters out of Boca Chica. The first day with Jim and Sue, the super nice owners of beautiful Seagullcove Lodge, and their friends Dave and Deneen from Alaska. We had a great day as we got some really nice Yellowfin Tunas, released a Sailfish, and had some exciting inshore action on poppers with some big Jack Crevalles! The next day we picked up Miroslav and Romana in Boca Chica and didn’t have so much luck offshore…again super nice seas but nada for Marlin and Tuna. We missed a couple shots at Sailfish. Tough day but we ran to the deep drop honey hole and at least got a few nice Snowy Groupers for dinner!

Miguel, Rene, Rolando, Ricardo, Theirry, and Peter from Honduras and Africa joined us next out on the island for a couple of nights and a couple of days of fishing. Unfortunately the Marlin decided not to show again. We did get into some exciting Yellowfin Tuna frenzies of fish up and wildly feeding boat side but we could not get them to eat anything we threw at them! We did get a couple of strikes on poppers and even had one really big Tuna come up and literally “crush” Rene’s popper. Rene had the big Tuna hooked up and peeling line after it exploded on the popper right next to the boat on for about for about three minutes before the popper came free. When the popper did get to the boat it was broken in half! Later that day we got a couple nice Dorado. The next day Miguel got a nice Almaco Jack and the Africans got a few nice African Pompanos with Capt. Tatin but again tough time offshore. Thanks for being such great sports guys!

The next group was another great group of guys from Chicago we fished 3 days out of Boca Chica. From Chicago…Peter, Nick, Joe, Pat, and returning client Carl. Again it was super slow offshore. We did get to release a couple of Sailfish but we didn’t get a good shot at Marlin or the Tunas. One day we did have better luck with the inshore fishing and released a couple of nice Roosters, Cubera Snappers, and some Blue Trevalles. These guys were a blast to fish with! Even though it was a bit slow offshore they made the best of it and you could see that they had a great time anyway!

Enjoy the pics…

Captain Shane Jarvis