Incredible Billfishing and Peacock Bass
text and photos by Mary L. Peachin and courtesy of Tropic Star Lodge and Guy Harvey
January, 2010 Vol.14 No.5
Sail unfurled, the billfish exploded out of the water. Less than half a mile off Panama’s Darien coast, sailfish gorge on migrating Pacific sardines. During the winter months, black and blue marlin school around Zane Grey Reef, a seamount rising from a depth of 300 to 110-feet beneath the ocean’s surface. Covering about 200-yards, marlin, sailfish tuna and other pelagics congregate to feast on an abundance of baitfish found in its upwelling current.
Tropic Star Lodge anglers have broken one hundred and fifty IGFA world records. In this fishing paradise, a daily release might yield forty or fifty fish per boat. At day’s end, boats returning to the marina have outriggers waving dozens of release flags.
Located on 14,000 acres of rainforest, Tropic Star is not your ordinary fishing lodge. Its magnificent setting on Piñas Bay can only be reached by boat or plane. So remote – 150 miles south of Panama City – there are no roads within a hundred miles. A chartered Twin Otter plane lands on a paved 3,000-foot airstrip. Guests can grab a beer or soft drink or make a pit stop in a small ramada before jumping on a tractor-pulled tram for the short ride to a nearby estuary where a panga waits. It’s then a short ten minute ride to the lodge’s dock.
The cheerfully designed double rooms have a large bathroom and a shared balcony with comfy chairs overlooking the water. El Palacio – the original owner’s home – sits high on a mountainside. For those not wishing to walk the 122 stairs, a cable-pulled car ascends the hill. The Palace has three bedrooms with private baths, a full kitchen, and can sleep six. The expansive sunken living room and outside terrace offers a panoramic view of the bay and surrounding mountains.
The luxury lodge serves excellent cuisine either in its waterfront dining room or al fresco around the swimming pool. There’s even lunch in the boat cooler. Ham and cheese sandwiches? Not here. How about Genoa dried salami on focaccia with sundried tomatoes and olives, fresh fruit, and whatever beer or soft drink you’d like.
Tropic Star’s eighty person staff outnumbers its capacity of thirty six guests. Needless to say, the service is attentive. While out on the ocean, their 31-foot high transom Bertram fleet, are perfect for fighting fish. When seas are rough, the boats feature all the necessary fishing equipment one may need to catch the big one.
Boats depart the dock at 6:30 in the morning and return at 3:00 p.m. What may seem like a long day of fishing becomes short and exhaustive as one fish after another puts up the fight of a lifetime.
Along with twelve outstanding anglers from Florida, North Carolina, Washington, and Arizona, I came to Panama to participate in IWFA’s (International Women’s Fishing Association) annual billfish catch and release tournament.
On the Puerto Rica, Floridian Grace Canfield, using twenty pound test Ande hi-viz line, released a dozen sailfish in a morning. There were times when she fought double hookups. Multiple hits are more the rule than the exception, as on one occasion when four sails chased our ballyhoo and belly baits. On the final day, Lorraine Francis came from behind and garnered the championship by releasing TWENTY FOUR sailfish. The grand total: six boats released 390 sailfish in three days.
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Panama is also noted for fresh and brackish water fishing for peacock bass, snook, and tarpon. Motoring down the Chagres River, we passed under a historic railway bridge into the Panama Canal. While most visitors cruise the passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, I was fishing for peacock bass with Horacio A. Clare III in the adjacent channel heading into Lake Gatún.
Better known as “Chicho,” the 43-year-old is not your typical fisherman. He is Panama’s IGFA peacock bass world record holder, with a second championship pending for dorado. He brings an uncanny expertise and fishing knowledge of the area and the 164-square-mile man-made lake.
Chicho doesn’t just fish like a champion angler, he looks like one. His fly-fishing shirt is emblazoned with sponsor emblems: Rapala, Shimano, and his IGFA world records. As we observed a phenomenal scene in a shallow lagoon, Chico was so in awe that he put down his rod. A male was protecting his larger pregnant mate as a voyeuristic predatory oscar waited nearby to eat the emerging eggs or hatched juveniles. “I have only seen this a few times,” Chicho said. “It’s more important for this female to give birth than for me to catch her.”
In the early 19th Century, Lake Gatún was created during the building of the Panama Canal. Throughout the rainforest, the channels and lagoons of the lake are home to peacock bass, tarpon, grouper, red snapper, snook, oscar, and jack trevally. Panama has only one of the four species of peacock bass. Their “sargento” is sedentary and territorial. According to Chicho, “they don’t go out to restaurants, rather they sit and wait for a passing tasty morsel.” Peacocks are aggressive during the spawning months between November and February. They’ll bite anything that passes their way.
Crocodiles, including half a dozen month-old hatchlings and turtles, sunned on muddy banks as birds dipped into the water to feed on fish. A harpy eagle – Panama’s national bird – soared overhead, while a black anhinga and an osprey perched on logs. In this bird watcher’s paradise, keel-billed toucan, wrens, tanagers, tropical woodpeckers, red-beaked wattle jacana, hummingbirds and yellow kisskadee are just a few of Panama’s 975 bird species.
Panama’s dense vegetation also propagates a palate of color. Yellow blossoms of the mayflower, purple jacaranda and the white flowered caracucha were in full bloom. The trees enveloped philodendron, ferns, bromeliads, orchids, and schefleras, while liana vines snaked around huge strangler fig trees. Observing the beautiful flora, I could hear the distinctive growling of howler monkeys echoing across the water, forcing the phrase “it’s a jungle out there” from my lips.
The boat ride to and from the Gamboa Rainforest Resort lies in the wake of freighters and cruise ships approaching the Canal’s Pablo Miguel locks. Located near narrow Gaillard Cut – the 800-foot excavation linking Lake Gatún to the Gulf of Panama – Gamboa River Resort’s 156 rooms and 32 historic villas are surrounded by Parque Nacional Soberania.
Embraced by the jungle, the area about forty minutes from Panama City, is designated as an eco-reserve. Gamboa offers many unique nature-related tours and activities. A 300-foot tram carries guests above the forest canopy, offering a coast to coast view. Hiking trails and rental kayaks are available at the marina. A boat trip to Monkey Island provides the opportunity to view a family of six white-faced capuchin monkeys. Another nearby island featured a lucky sighting of half a dozen crocodile hatchlings.
By reservation, Caudillo or Headman Felipe Cabezón welcome visitors to the Emberá village of San Antonio, a ten minute boat ride from Gamboa where guests can experience the lifestyle of the Emberá native Indians who choose to live in a traditional village where family and community take precedence.
Historians believe that the Emberá migrated to Panama through Columbia from the Amazon River. Their role in the construction of the Panama Canal was building hand carved canoes. In return, they were given land in the Charges National Park. In addition to their villages in the Darién, an hour and a half from the modern architecture of Panama City, the Emberá retain their primitive style of life in the rainforest. Their thatched roof open-air huts are built on stilts to protect from flooding. They subsist on corn, which they grow in a small plot, and fish the river. They sell woven baskets and carvings to the few visitors who make the canoe voyage upstream. Women paint their topless bodies with the black colored fruit of the Jagua that looks like dark henna, while the men wearing loincloths tend to the needs of the village.
For serious anglers making the trip to this gateway country, the abundance of the more sizeable Pacific sailfish in such large schooling numbers is an unequaled experience. Marlin fishermen have an easy target during seasonal migrations, while the bass, tarpon, and snook angler will love fishing in the rainforest as ships navigating the canal come and go. From its fascinating indigenous culture, to its modern capital city filled with an abundance of nightlife and upscale shopping, Panama seems to offer something for everyone.
Tropic Star Lodge
800.682.3424
Gamboa Rainforest Resort
877.800.1690