My wife had a trolling strike and was hooked up………..……





Nice job honey! J



We then started trolling for giant marlin. Robbo was up first………..we wanted to see him catch, photograph and release one of these giants to get the party started. Suddenly, the clicker on the left-side rod started going off…the live bait was getting nervous. Then without warning, line started peeling off the reel and we saw the culprit come up for air. Flipper was toying with us. It would chew off a nice chunk, hold on and then come back for more. Robbo had to reel in a thousand yards of 80 pound mono while this craven cetacean slowly ate our bait. I felt badly for Rob….we all thought this was the monster we were searching for. But redemption and a fresh chance were right around the corner! Once he had cranked all that line in, the RIGHT side rod got slammed! “Take him Mingo, take him!” “No bro, you got ripped off that time, so this one is all yours, GET HIM!”

Robbo lurched over and yanked the rod out as line peeled away. He set the hook with a mighty sweep. He felt a heavy weight……then….nothing……then a huge weight…..and nothing again. This means only one thing…..another thieving porpoise was eating our bait. Once Rob realized he was stuck reeling in ANOTHER thousand yards of line, he did what any sane person would do….he laughed, handed me the rod and said “here Mingus, this one is all yours” and went to slam a frothy Atlas from the cooler. I cranked away on Flipper. Feeling that much live weight is pretty strange….you realize you are pulling against a mammal that weighs a ton and is too smart to get hooked. They know exactly which parts to eat safely. I reeled in a skipjack head and we were off to find dolphin-free water.

Time for a beer while we look for busting schools of hungry fish……



Murphy’s Law is universal - This day turned out to be one of the most awesome experiences of my life. One thing about Panama that surprised me was how many various species will come up into a spread together, unlike some places where it will be all tuna, or just dorado, or only billfish. I was hoping for a sailfish. Soon a hot school of dorado came up and start zigzagging back and forth in our lure spread. One whipped over and inhaled the fly I had flopped out there. It bent my 12 wt right down to the cork as it peeled off a hundred yards of line and backing in a nanosecond. As I settled into the tussle, I looked down and saw a nice sailfish come right up to the boat, not 15 feet from our outboards! [censored]!

If you look closely you can see the sailfish right behind the boat…….



Here is my best sailfish shot on a fly and I’ve got a dorado on…Murphy’s Law in action.….LOL!!