How do you guys stand this cold???

Finished up yesterday and left the 90+ degree heat of exotic Panama, shoulda' stayed

Sometimes you do things that you wish you hadn't (I do anyways)...not this time, when opportunity knocked in mid december for this trip I thought about it for about 2 hours then sent off my fishing piggy bank to Lost Coast Excursions for a package deal that Robbo was hosting for them, time flew and I left just about the time that the weather went south here... good timing packed one small backpack(no socks just flip-flops) and a bag of jigs along with a fair amount of promo items (swimbaits) hand delivered to me by northwest fishing icon Buzz Ramsey and bailed out for seatac then atlanta then PANAMA!!

I think the reason I fish the way I do is that it makes me a kid again and I felt pretty green hitting the airport in a central american country, but it went down easy and we roamed the streets of downtown at midnight of our first night in town, PanaVegas as Robbo calls it, they have it all. fun.

Lost Coast had it all arranged with a van picking us up for the quatro hora van ride out through santiago to the *end of the road* cool little town on a river estuary where the little panga style boat would take us out to the big boat.



Had a few beers here as it got dark then we finally bailed in for the 5 mile ride out, got very little sleep with all night activity while the crew was prepping the boat for the ride out in the early AM.



That's a 20' koffler they use as a runabout while cruising the islands for surfing and diving sitting on the back deck, the big vessel is a retired crab boat from the north sea (her sister ship used to be on deadliest catch) they retrofitted her for cruising and now she's living the good life, there were 6 of us on board but they normally need 10.

Reach our distination and headed for the ranger station on Coiba island to pick up permits...sorry Sol, can't skip the island tour



There was another group on a dive tour picking up permits at the same time..on the ride back to the boat Captain Frank chided me for not inviting a couple of the sweeties back...D'oh!



Our Captain, Frank....32 years old and certified to captain super tankers, intelligent articulate and funny, a genuine good guy just taking a working vacation and running the Lost Coast Explorer for a couple of months.



hang loose



Met Marlin Captain Bartolo in the bay by the ranger station that morning and headed out for some inshore casting, Robbo and I made the wise choice of bringing some quality gear and tackle...



Jigs, poppers and swim baits were in short supply out there, so the mate Alberto made himself at home rummaging through our bag and found the shimano butterfly jigs to his liking...we tied them on and I was hit on the first cast, didn't stick...kept casting to a rip line and was chased by some giant (5 foot) wahoo that kept shying off at the boat, we covered water quickly, Bartolo and his entire family, uncles, cousins, father...everyone are captains and have been forever, so he seemed to know when a spot was futile and would not really say anything like "reel 'em up" he would just go....trying to run over your line as you raced to get it in.

Made a long run to the outside of Coiba and started casting to wash rocks with poppers, seeing giant flashes chasing after whatever we tossed with a few misses but no hookups, the excitement was building.

Finally I get smashed on a surface popper...probably the most exciting fishing in that clear water, hard work too, casting that heavy rig as far as you're able then reeling as fast as you can while ripping and jerking the rod tip to get the right action on it, nailed a nice Bluejack that give a helluva fight for their size....Robbo followed that one up with this neon specimen, they really do look like this with colors looking *plugged in* (thanks Gilly)



Headed back in for dinner then a quick trip back out with the Captain for some close by action....1st cast one of the crew hooks *something big* on a popper, it was peeling line off of Robbos heavy duty giant spinning real at a crazy pace and the dude just keep tightening the drag, in my head I'm saying WTF? I should have been saying it out loud cause on about the third twist it breaks, bad deal...poppers are about 25 buck and there is no store for replacements, he handed back the rod and that was that. I got a cute little barracuda on a popper, then robbo gets hit as his cast hits the water, almost like the fish was wating with an open mouth, a few head shakes and a tug...then some heavy swings and it just comes in easy....wonder why?



...and that was just the 1st day!

I'll pick up the story of going out for billfish manana.

Adios
Stam

Looks like a beautiful place! Look forward to more pics...

sounds fun!!!!

Awesome!!!...Later


Jake

Cool. looks like fun.

What kind and how long should the mangled fish have been?

I missed you! Hee Haw!

Dude..... I hate you right now. I really need to do that!

I hate you more than Neal does. I'm yearnin' for some warm sun.

I am outside everyday.

I hate Stam more than both of you guys put together.

But cool pics Steve, I am down with the program for next year, looks like a great trip.

Right on Steve Looks like a trip to be described as nothing short of amazing!


Gimme some hoof, Bro

Makes our fisheries look tame!

Steve

Looks like fun to me! Sweet picts Stam....looking forward to a few more.

I want more, give me more.

Matt

A little bird told me there's porn-o-rama to come. Actually it wasn't a bird. It was Stam.

You think you hate the f'er NOW........... ?

........Robbo pointing out where the *big ones* live for manana.



Dias Dos, headed out to Hannibal Bank about 18 miles offshore where we expected to find schools of bonita to catch for bait for the marlin and sailfish and such....there were none to be seen so another 8 mile run to Montesso Island to fish a reef for *whatever*, along the way we cross paths with a local longliner.



We troll around a bit and actually see a couple of sailfish jumping off in the distance but no takers...so we hook up some chuncks of bonita and send them to bottom, first drop for one of the other guys hooks up a *rainbow runner*, fought okay but not like most of the fish down there.



We kept quite a few fish, both for us to eat and for the ship to have on hand when the surfing and diving groups come out, I don't think we ate any of this fish, but is sure was a pretty specimen.

Our captain, Barto had established a pokerface pokerpersonality showing no emotion ever....until he spotted "DORADO!!!....POPPERS! POPPERS!" Robbo being quicker and taller managed to outdash me for the popper rod the first time around, a quick short cast with the popper to a dorado that was swimming alonside the boat was an immediate hookup, crazy arial stuff and colors that can only be duplicated with LSD...AND they are exceptional eating.



Our first one was a good one



We trolled around a bit more and I was starting to figure out the program, Robbo and I gave the other two fishermen on the boat first crack at the trolled live baitrods, the first one got taken by a sailfish that spit the bait and hook on it's intitial jump, second was a good hookup with a small yellowtail tuna that found it's way to the sushi tray.....when I saw Barto and Alberto fiddling around suspiciously in the back of the boat I sidled my way to the back just in time to see a pointed bill turn with the bait, a couple of seconds later we were fast into a good sailfish that was peeling dacron off of an old penn 300 at an alarming rate.



Some of the sailfish were insane and we figured out soon that the harder you pull on them the more inclined to pull back they are, so.......





This one was nuts, Robbo had a professional grade camera and he has shots that will grace the covers of magazines from this battle.



My camera is okay, but by the time you get them zoomed in they start to degrade.



The fantastic part of a sailfish battle is the speed of events when they freak out, one second line is peeling faster than a stripper seeing a C note, then a jump or two or three with the line snapping and stretching over the bill and fins....then total slack leaving you cranking like a madman hoping that the line will come tight again, I swear that they cover 50' with one swipe of the tail, good reel technique is important here, I learned the "turn and burn" on Docs boat and managed to pick up slack fast enough to draw praise from the captain and mate, I don't think they are easily impressed either.



A quick grip and grin with Alberto and back over the side it goes.

Dude!

Killer report so far and killer marlin shot!

More! More! More!

I was all over that trip until I found out the price tag.

Those jumping sailfish shots kick ass!

Brrr...it's cold around here.

Fish on...

Todd

Later that day we start a long *troll* back into the islands....no baits just those big surface hootchies draggin' in the prop wash, there are 4 rods, 2 of which are genuine marlin rigs with huge penn internationals on them, one is a penn 330...a good rig, and the other is an old penn 300 loaded with dacron mounted to a 30 or 50 lb rod...not sure which, anyway it's too small for *big* fish so of course when a big fish hits which one so you think it wants? ...we are about halfway back in to do some onshore fishing just trolling through a nondescript area, no bottom features, no reason for anything to be there when all hell breaks loose.... a Huge yes, I said HUGE! Black Marlin smashes the lures 25' behind the boat and immediately goes into hyperdrive...tailwalking accross the ocean like a hot steelhead (only bigger)...the captain gets back on the wheel and hammers the throttle, spins the bow toward the departing marlin as I watch the line disappear off of that little penn 300 seriously there was less than 15' of line left on that reel when we started to gain speed behind the brute...it tailwalks some more and we are able to catch up a *little* Buck, one of the other guys was up on this one and he did a good job of just staying in the game, while Barto barked " Reel..reel!! reel!! FASTER, FASTER..FASTER!!.....sir. Buck gave it his best college try, but 10 minutes and he was spent, his partner grabbed the rod and lasted about the same, robbo was snapping pics anytime the fish broke water and got some fine shots, I took a turn on the fish as it settled into a tug of war, I lasted about a hlf of an hour, then Robbo came in to bat cleanup, he did better than an hour with marginal progress...then through the order again, una hora, dos horas, tres horas.....finally I took the rod again and decided it was time to use the thumb a little more, pretty soon the mate Alberto was over there with gloves on both hands and thumbing the spool with me, Robbo reaches over and grabs the foregrip on the rod and leans into it as hard as he can while I thumb and crank we get the giant up to 8 or 10 ' below the boat and estimate him to be 12' and 600+ lb....huge, huge fish, by this time we are into it for over 4 hours and have traveled 10 or 12 miles and I am making a case for a release because to land it will probably kill it, Bartolo puts on the gloves and grabs the mainline right above the bimini knot and pulls as hard as he can with a little jerk at the end and "pop" goes the leader.....the end.



I did manage a series of shots...one early in the battle and another when we "thought" we had him about 2.5 hrs into it.



I doubt that the pics can convey the size and power of this thing.




Me on one of my turns with the brute, props to Mark Andresen of Redington for the hookup with the Redington shirts, #30 block long sleeves in the 95 degree heat 7 degrees north of the equator are mandatory, this white boy would be a pork rind without them.

Nice job!!

I can really appreciate those marlin shots.

HOOOOO CHEEEEEEEE MOMMMMMMMMA !!!!

Im calling Robbo to book for next year, NOW...cheers Stam sounds like a great adventure

Awesome Pics!

But your killing me....I have about 6" of snow here with more coming down. I need some of that sunshine and jumping sailfish!

I mentioned something about tuna and sushi earlier in the thread, this stuff was outstanding..



Every night it was something different for appetizers, Brent the cook was a goofy surfer dude, that didn't really surf..pro telemark skiier taking a winter off to be warm, and doing a good job of feeding us and the boats crew.

Next day was back to it on *the banks* rough water in the morning but there were bonita shcools everywhere and they were snappy, robbo and I ripped shredded and tore up the baitfish with light tackle, keeping a constant supply of fresh bonita from 2 to 4 lbs on the hooks behind the boat and the sailfish were biting!



We landed 4 that morning with Robbo getting a crack at a big blue marlin, I took some long distance shots with Robs camera that are probably just splashes on the horizon...it hit one of the big penn international reels so we were able to relax a bit, after about 40 minutes I gave Rob a break on the crank and Alberto managed to get his hands on the leader, but the 250 to 300 lb blue wasn't quite ready....he burned me out with my effort and I handed the rod back to Rob for the coupe de grace. Beautiful fish.



We also beat up on the dorado pretty badly that day, I manage to cork the rest of the gang when Bartolo announced " Dorado!! "...a quick cast right on target behind the boat and WHAM!!! the thing smashed the popper but doesn't hook up....I can see the fouled hooks so I rip it in and Barto grabs and clears the plug, I open the bail and tell him ..."throw it!...just throw it!!" he tosses it right in front of the fish and GULP it's on like donkey kong.



The dorado were crazy for the next hour or so....Robbo scored one and the other guys had chances but casting skills and good action on the plugs matter so a couple managed to escape our wrath I give them a few minutes to calm down and rummage through "the bag" for something cool to tie on my salmon rod, I've got 40 lb PP on a curado 300 and Bill Herzog had sent a couple of bass spinner baits down to try, I twist one up straight to my mainline and tune the reel for casting....my first genuine cast and two dorado chase in and one crushes the red and white spinnerbait right at the boat then hauls ass leaving a good scorchin' on my thumb, robbo tosses one of Buzz's swimbaits right on the nose of fish #2 and we're double up!



A day that just left the arms feeling shot.



we weren't alone out there...saw about a half dozen of these guys, I 'spect you don't want to mess with them

It is a land of contrasts too, there is money down there but those that have it seem to have it all, those that don't live a different life than I can imagine.



The luxury yatch in the back could probably feed these guys whole village for ten years

Every night was a cool sunset, with the sun dropping straight down...none of this angling accross the horizon with a long twilight, it's light....and then it's dark in about 15 minutes.



Home sweet home.



Last day Robbo and I went with Captain Frank to just look at inshore stuff and try for some AJ's (amberjacks) and roosters or any reef fish.



Robbo supplied Frank with a big AJ for an amberjack rib dinner and we just basically cast until our arms were ready to fall off, with lots of spectacular scenery, fish and birds always in view.

With a couple of hours left to an evening departure I decided it was time to go ashore, figured that I needed to feel like Robinson Carusoe for a minute, the little boats couldn't run ashore so I swam the last hundred yards or so and staggered onto the beach, was immediately howled at by a howler monkey and was amazed by the size of the lizard tracks (iguana?)..I climbed a vine like tarzan and hung out in a tree for a bit, inspected a sea turtles nest where she had layed her eggs on the last tide....tried to beat open a coconut but failed and then it was time to head back to the boat, swam out and we loaded up for the 4 to 5 hour ride back in where we spent the night and got off of the boat in the morning, wrapped up the trip in panama city which is more fun than it may sound, neat city!....thanks for the travel tips Dave Vedder

I will be back next year, it's even better than I make it sound.

stam

wow....cool pics stamuel!

Holy Crap! Way cool bro. Way Way cool.

wow.

Right On Stam. Great pics and very good storytelling. One of these days I'm going to nut up and drop the dimes to take a trip like that, you only live once.

Robbo, lets see some of your pics!... your'e due for a post around here!

Just plain awesome Stam!

dammit........... Robbo has taken my 12 wt flyrod on that friggin' boat TWICE ALREADY and I HAVEN'T been on it yet........

that is some awesome writing and photos Steve! what an awesome trip.

holy crap............ I'm going next time. Enough watching my gear have fun while I freeze my nuts off.....................

me need beers with Robbo....persuasion time.

Very nice report Stam, you are a lucky man.

I fished for Sailfish once, no luck.

Most excellent report "Quaco". Stam got so much respect from the Panamanian captains they dubbed him "Quaco", which apparently means studly fisherman.

The neat thing about fishing Panama is that you have options. If the marlin or sailfish aren't biting there are well over 20 other species to catch, all of which will kick your ass. Off the top of my head here's a list of the fish that were hooked on this trip:

Black Marlin
Blue Marlin
Sailfish
Dorado
Yellowfin Tuna
Wahoo
Bonita
Amberjack
Mullet Snapper
Rock Snapper
Cubera Snapper
Blue Runner
Blue Jack
Jack Crevalle
Broomtail Grouper
Bull Shark
Whitetip Reef Shark
Barracuda
Roosterfish
Columbian Snapper

It's obviously impressive to see a billfish explode behind the boat, but I swear my favorite thing to do down there is the inshore fishing. Casting poppers and swim baits on spinning gear to a long list of species that live in the rocks is kick ass fun and when the sun is right you can see the fish coming, whatever shape and size they may be. For me every fish is like the first one I've ever hooked, whether it's a 10 lb blue jack or a 60 lb cubera. The water is clear and every fish has to be sick-fast to survive. Drags, rods, and tackle are stressed to their max.

Around one particular rock we fished there were large schools of blue runners, roosterfish, blue jacks, jack crevalle, and snapper swimming around the rock. Steve hooked and lost some incredibly huge fish on swimbaits and I had a school of roosterfish attack my Yo Zuri popper, resulting in a killer fight on a 35 lb rooster.

The Berkley swimbaits were a huge hit down there, but we'll need to modify them slightly to increase the hookup ratio. If you're going anywhere there's bluewater I highly recommend picking up some of these things, as just about everything bit them. Shimano Butterfly jigs also work great over submerged reefs and pinnacles.

I have to say that fishing with Stam on this trip was one helluva lot of fun. The guy has a great attitude and loves life. My stomach hurt after a couple of the laffing fits.

January 12-18 and January 18-24 are two slots I have reserved for next year and once those are filled we're going to grab some February dates. The big boat only holds 12 people, which are split between three sportfishers. Nights are filled with great food, cerveza's, cigars, music, and good times. Tough to figure out why I want to spend more time down there!

Spanish for 'master angler' I would guess..........

That is a good list of fish caught, but what about the Brown Breasted Mattress Thrasher??? Or the ever-elusive Pink Titted Bed Flounder???

Those fall under the Columbian Snapper category. Too many variations of the species, so we lumped them all together.

I think 'Quaco' is Spanish for "Dirty Rotten Bastards Who Left Us Here In The Freezing Damn Cold And Snow for Two Weeks!"...

Awesome pics, dudes...looks like a trip of a lifetime.

Rob, I was talking to Joel about the Panama trip...sounds like something everyone ought to do at least once in their life. If things work out I'd love to be on one of those trips next winter.

I've got some other stuff to talk to you about, too...been too long...I'm gonna give you a ring in the next few days to discuss it.

Fish on...

Todd

Awesome pix and trip.

Damn, damn, damn! Only one month gone this year and you post up the what I'm guessing is going to be the story of the year! Absolutely the best!

Robbo where are the pic's??? Stam said you got a butt load of cover shots......lets see them.

Once again Stam gets my vote for best thread. I don't know how he does it but he somehow makes me think I am there. Way awesome Mahi & Marlin shots & descript - too cool.

I'm locked in for next year, I don't believe in "once in a lifetime"

Even if the fishing dropped off I intend to learn scuba and maybe even see if I can bust my ass on a surfboard, Hell, I'd spend a day exploring one of the islands....not sure I could just lounge around the big boat though.

I've known Robbo for a couple of years now but had never fished with him, we are on the same page....we both know the universal grunt of "Ooh..Ooh..OoooH!!! as a fish is chasing your lure across the surface, you'd think that a couple of guys that have caught more fish than we can count would not revert back to 14 year olds giggling at the sight of a school of bluejack chasing your [censored] down, but we did.

Rob is quality, and if you can't have fun fishing with him...there is no hope for you.

Had a great knot tying session on the back deck one night when I busted out a jar of pickled jalepenos from my garden to share with the crew, I was surprised that most of them were scared of the heat, but once they were open they were gone and Alberto and Bartolo spent an hour or so teaching this hombre the "bimini" knot and several veriations, they tie some beautiful knots down there, and I was amazed on the ride out when alberto would be doing it while basically riding in a paint shaker.

There are so many people that I've fished with from this board that I would love to see down there...it is so different, but, once it's *Fish on" the adreniline tastes the same....what a rush when a sailfish slowly appears as a spot of blue 20 or 30 ' down then comes into focus in the slick alongside the boat, alberto would grab the bill with a gloved hand and hang on while the thing thrashed itself out, haul it up for a quick pic then revive it and watch it swim away strong.

Thanks for all the kind responses.

stam

Since you're going back next year, I *strongly* recommend that you get scuba certified! I couldn't possibly imagine going to Panama and *not* diving.

The only drawback to diving down there is that you *might* find it more enjoyable than the fishing.

The best part is that you can fish in between dives!

I'll try to get down that way when the kids are in school. Probably a few more years away for this old man.

You truley are the Stam"imal, Killer stuff bro

Wasn't being one of the "others" on the island, adventure enough for you, Dr. Reverend Ben Parker?

I'm going back - and taking Freckles with me!

Sign me up!