Dr. Vince Ward and party of five
were our fishing guests in Panama the end of Feburary. The first day we fished just the
afternoon off the South coast of Cebaco about 8 miles from the lodge. Jigging
“arana’s” produced over ten nice grouper and Peruvian amberjack. Day two we
fished South of Rio Negro. The water was green, cloudy and the fishing slow. We caught an
assortment yellowfin tuna, mackerel, amberjack, and snapper. We sighted a large black
marlin terrorizing a school of mackerel but could not attract it to our bait. We had two
wahoo hookups that were gently released on their first run. Day three we again fished off
Isla Cebaco. We worked hard to find baits on our run out but only put 4-goggle eye in the
bait well between both boats. Again the water was green, cloudy and the fishing slow. We
trolled rapalas and jigged “arana’s” all morning around Bone's reef with no
strikes. We dropped down and trolled several live bonitos again but no takers. Early
afternoon we moved to Hutch reef. Around 5 PM the bite turned on with each goggle eye
producing a big grouper or amberjack. The jigging action also produced smaller grouper,
amberjack, pompano, schoolmaster snapper and a very nice Cubera. Day four we returned to
Punta Mariato and were greeted to clear blue water and serious baitfish activity. We
caught and rigged a live bonito early on that produced an immediate strike and shredded
150 lb test monofilament leader. A second pass revealed a mass of chum where the bonito
was ravaged. We rigged several more live bonitos on wire but thay were ignored. Vince
broke out the poppers that got the snappers and wahoo worked up but no hook ups. We fast
trolled rapalas but the Jack Cravelle was on them faster than our target fish. We moved
offshore for the afternoon and boated an abundance of 12-16 pound yellowfin tuna
