Where would you go if you ran a charter boat company and you went fishing practically every day? That always seems to be our dilemma when we try to make a decision on a vacation. Over the years no matter where we go our vacations always include the ocean, scuba diving, and of course, fishing. This vacation, that we had been planning for over a year, was no exception; water, diving, and fishing. With much pre-planning from our group of five terrific friends, we traveled to Panama, the country not the city in Florida. The main destination for fishing was to a quaint fishing lodge on the Pacific side of Panama – Rio Negro Fishing Lodge located outside Mariato.

The Rio Negro Lodge has recently become the place to go in Panama if you are interested in catching some awesomely large fish. Tom Giles, a retired army lad who is also the brother of our friend, Lucie Giles and his partner, Alex Livingston, a retired Panama Canal Firefighter, owns the lodge. Two more entertaining and interesting individuals would be hard to find. Their lodge is located about 600 meters from the Pacific Ocean. The beaches are strewn for miles with washed up drifted wood – a crafters paradise. They are also covered with rocks, shells, flotsam, cantinas, a few homes, and incredibly beautiful sunsets.

Upon arriving to Rio Negro Lodge, Lucie, Carla and Stuart Clay, Cecil and I settled into the lodge a Spanish-style hacienda. White stucco and teak wood throughout each room created a comfortable home-base to dream about the big fish that were to be caught in the coming days. The clubroom where we would eat and socialize was furnished with a wooden table that each guest was invited to carve their names into – just to keep track of all the fishing tales. Our tale was to begin in the morning.

After a refreshing night’s sleep, we were ready for the fishing adventure to begin. First we had to get the 31’ Ponga, christened the Magoo, down to the ocean. Tom and Alex had built the fiberglass ponga and I could already tell that Cecil was thinking, "How can we utilize a boat like the Ponga back at Tybee." After the Magoo was launched we climbed aboard from the bank and headed out to sea. Once we had navigated the rock-lined narrow banks of the Rio Negro River, we headed towards the Isla Cebaco for the bait. Catching bait can be as fun as catching a big fish since the equipment is usually a very light rod with a rig with tiny gold hooks up and down the leader. Our group of seven consisting of Cecil and I, Carla and Stuart, Lucie, her brother, Captain Tom, and their Panamanian Captain, Roger. We worked hard at catching bait, small Jack’s that were insisting on being finicky and slow to bite. After some time, who has time to keep track of something as unimportant as time on a vacation, we had caught just enough Jacks for what we were praying and hoping was going to be giant fish.

After a short ride in the Magoo, up the Coast of Panama through perfectly calm seas of crystal blue water that we dream about on Tybee. We arrived at what every Captain likes to find a "Secret Spot." Tom had recently found this reef that looked so good with the water depth changing from 50’ to 90’ up a slope we were wishing we could scuba dive on it. The fish finder showed what looked like multitudes of fish and we quickly rigged one of the live baits up and slowly let him swim to the bottom. Cecil and Stuart had gallantly agreed that the girls should have the first opportunity at trying to catch the big fish. Roger worked the live line and upon checking the rod found that our bait had been taken so rerigged and sent the next bait to the bottom.

We drifted in the beautiful water alone for some time when we soon noticed that another boat was heading in our general direction. Like any good captain guarding a "secret spot" we pulled in and rapidly headed off the drop. Tom recognized the approaching vessel and headed toward his friend, Tony, for fishing report. Tony and his friend Mike had been on a four-day fishing trip near Coiba looking for Wahoo that were suppose to be hot at this time of year. They reported that the fishing was slow and they were only able to fill two large coolers with fillets. After much ribbing and fish lies, Tony and his friend headed in the direction of home. We congratulate ourselves on our swift maneuver at saving the "secret spot" and headed back to begin catching the mother load of fish.

Roger let out the live line and again we wait for the hit. Within minutes Roger soon hollered "fish on!" It had been decided among the girls that Carla would catch the first one. Roger handed the rod over to Carla and strapped her into the stand-up fighting belt. The rod had immediately bent over to a curving 90 degrees and Carla struggled to start reeling in line. After many minutes of reeling with small amounts of line being recovered, we began to hear Carla grunting and the rest of us yelling encouragement to reel, reel, reel! Fifteen minutes had passed and Carla had recovered some line when as often happens in fishing the fish decides to fight a little harder for its life and off went several yards of line. With more directions and cheering emitted from our crew along with comments of "this is a huge fish" Carla was able to reel in more and more line. Looking through the aqua colored water we could begin to see what looked like a monster of a fish coming to the surface. As the fish came closer and closer, it became bigger and bigger. Tom grabbed the gaff and quickly asked Roger to bring another gaff in order to land this giant. With everyone leaning over the side of the Magoo one would think we could easily have pulled this fish into the boat – no way! With herculean strength Tom and Roger finally landed the biggest fish we had every seen on a boat. With much squealing and congratulations we all examined this mighty catch, a Jewfish. However now days to be politically correct the Jewfish is known as the Goliath Grouper a most appropriate name change. What a monster Carla had landed. Carla was in shock, her muscles screaming and we were hearing her muttering, "I can’t believe I caught this fish and my arms won’t stop shacking!" The question every angler asks after catching their Galloth is "how long did that take?" We all informed Carla it was only about 20 minutes to which she shockingly responded "It seemed like hours." After pictures were taken of the 200 lb giant and Carla finally got control of her muscles, we were excited for the next monster hookup.

We traveled to several more fishing drops but as Tony had reported fishing was slow. We did come across another new secret spot that we all decided should be named Tybee Reef. After loosing all but one remaining bait to some pesky 30-60 pound reef sharks having about 45 minutes fishing time remaining, Tom decided to relocate one more time to soak our last bait. Cecil scored a beautiful Peruvian Amberjack on that lucky bait just before we called it a day. The day presented opportunities for each of us to try and catch the next big one but nothing could possibly compare to Carla’s fish. As the day came to an end, we headed back to the entrance of the Rio Negro River with that satisfied feeling that every angler experiences all the while listening to Carla’s triumph of catching the mammoth Goliath Grouper.