At the end of August, we hosted a group of repeat customers from Germany who usually come during the dry season. The idea was to focus on tunas and so I chose a week right in the middle of the tuna season, with medium tides that usually gets the tunas feeding on top. Well, that did not turn too well as big tunas could either not be found or would not feed during the whole length of the week ! Needless to say this was a disapointment but also an unpleasant surprise as I was absolutely sure there would at least find a couple of good tuna bites during that week.
We ended up doing mostly inshore fishing and to my surprise (again !), there was quite a few tarpons around, which we usually see more around May/June and October/November. Over a dozen were jumped, mostly on topwater but also on slow jigs. Some were monster fish in the 150 lbs class... But none was landed !

We were reminded of 2 lessons:
1/ On the Tuna Coast of Panama, conditions are ever changing and it's really hard to predict how the fishing is going to be and what fish  specie will bite best. This is not only true for tuna, throughout the year we see a lot of variation in the bite for all species. Which leads us to the second point:
2/ It's always good to come with an open mind and be ready to adapt and enjoy whatever is biting good, even if it may not be your first target specie. This is excatly what the guys did by spending more time inshore rather than trying to catch tunas that were simply not in a feeding mood.

Despite the disapointment, most of the guys will return for tuna season 2019 so let's hope they can make up for it then !

Better late than never, here are some reports from July and August:

Mid-July, we had the pleasure to see Ken and his son Daniel return to the lodge. They fished for 4 days and had good numbers and variety of inshore species on their first day. Second day was a tuna fest and they gladly invited me for a taste of the action on the 3rd day. The Tuna Coast really deserved it's nickname as we had a great day on tunas again, going from one frenzy to another all day long, catching many sizeable fish on popper. 4th day was spent inshore again but was kinda slow.

Check out the kind of action we had on tuna ! We did release a few fish but kept many. It can prove quite dangerous to try to remove a popper from tunas and we are not too strict on releasing the tunas since you don't hurt tunas as easily as you may hurt an inshore fishery if you are not cautious.

Next groups were late August. Our good amigo Paul returned to the Panafishing lodge with his sister, and we had the pleasure to meet Brian and his crew. Fishing was so-so. Apart for a few crazy topwater bites, notably on roosters, most of the action was on jig, and better yet, on slow-jig. When slow-jigging greatly outfish speed-jigging, you know that the fish are not really in a feeding mood. Edurado's boat stayed inshore, and all best fish fell for a slow jig. Javier's boat mostly stayed inshore and when he did try to go out for tunas, they were not cooperating with only 1 decent fish landed. I joined on the boat one day and while the day was nothing special, we had a great 30 minutes of popping. Besides the usual suspects, some monster bull sharks attacked our poppers a good half-dozen times. A few of them were absolutely enormous. Seeing a 400+ pound fish grab your popper is guaranteed to get your adrenaline pumping !!! It really made my day...

Been lazy with the reports lately. We hosted 5 groups in June. This month lived up to it's reputation with mostly very calm or flat seas, and really good variety. Overall, fishing was not specially good or bad. As always in this season, there was an abundance of small yellowfin on the inshore spots. We actually got asked a couple of times to move to less action-packed spots. Yes, when the small YFT bites, it can really be a fish on every cast or so. The strikes are truly spectacular and they fight surprisingly well on the lighter gear. It's a lot of fun and definitely makes up for the slower popping at the coast that we experience in the wet season.
By the end of June, the big tunas had made it to their winter grounds 20 to 30 milles ofshore of Pedasi. Guys had them to 100+ pounds on poppers. Here are a few pictures:

Late May, we had the pleasure to host the guys from Tackle Source coming from Malaysia/Singapore for some slow-jigging and topwater action. They demonstrated what kind of results can be achieved when using slow jigs on the Tuna Coast of Panama. Be sure to check their nice report and numerous pictures on the Tackle Source blog:

Tackle Source report part 1

Tackle Source report part 2

Here is a teaser:

That same week, we also had 2 regulars from Brazil, and they did just as well as they always do:

We hosted 2 groups this mid-May. I guess after the good fishing we experienced these past weeks and months, we were long due for a slow week, and this was to be the one.
The guys still caught plenty of fish and species but hard work was a must and it felt very slow at times. That's when we are happy to have the ever reliable jack crevalle and football yellowfin tunas. Even when they don't bite good, you still get rewarded from time to time with a nice surface strike.
Actually, in terms of chances at trophy fish, this week was no worse than another. But many things can go wrong on those fish, and they did, more so for one group as the other had quite a few crackers in the end. What was missing, really, was the consistent action on smaller and medium fish that we usually get in-between those few shots at trophy fish.

Last week of April, the dry season conditions are oficially gone. Water has warmed up a lot and the sardines and resulting frenzy are scarce. In fact, numbers have been particularly low this week, but damn the cubera snappers were playful ! When coming to fish the Tuna Coast, it's a good idea to arrive with an open-mind as one of the key to avoid disapointment is being able to adapt to what, and how it's biting at the moment. It can be so different from week to week... For example, in March, it was all about popping the shoreline. Action was intense, but trophy fish were scarce. Some weeks the jigging prevails, sometimes one or more specie is abundant while others are absent. Some weeks have a bit of everything, and unfortunately some weeks are slow. Perhaps more than elsewhere, no 2 weeks are the same, and if you ask me "what should I expect ?", I would have a hard time giving a short answer...
So, our Captains have learned to adapt to the ever-changing conditions. This particular week, the best thing there was to do was using the heavy rod over the big fish marks. And that's what we did for the most part. Cuberas were biting good, many were lost and good numbers were landed. One angler landed 4 and lost 11, amazing numbers considering the specie. It was all about "going big or going home". To illustrate that, the day I went out with some of the guests, we fished the big popping rod for the most part of the day. Between the 4 of us we landed only 4 fish besides the bits and bobs not even worth mentioning. You would think it was a bad day but each one of us landed a trophy cubera snapper, and the other fish was one was the biggest rainbow runner I've seen with my own eyes. In the end everybody thought we had a great day ! Oh, and we (or rather me, to be honnest) also lost another monster cubera snapper...

Wet season seems to want to come earlier this year in Panama. We are just past mid-April. Rains have not kicked in yet but the water got warmer and the wind a lot softer. As the conditions changed, we have been using the big rods more. There are still good action inshore and good numbers of roosters, with a final count of 52 for the week and all anglers having caught one by the end of day 2, but that inshore action is slowly fading away and the fishing is moving further out to the deeper marks. There, the cubera snappers have been seen in huge numbers. Many fish have been lost as usual but all anglers (but one) caught cuberas on topwater lures. To illustrate that, the one unlucky angler who did not boat any actually lost 9. Pulled hooks, unstoppable fish and broken rod all played against him and showed again, if needed, that cubera snapper is one of the toughest fish to land on popping gear.
Overall, it's been a very enjoyable week with a good mix of action and big fish, and a very nice group of great people ! Thanks all for the good times !

Early April, fishing was not quite as good as the week before, but still very consistent as you'd expect at this time of the year. Still a good amount of roosterfish and tunas around. Seems like the wet season wants to come in early this year. Fish of the week was a huge broomtail grouper caught on a Savage Gear 460 gr. shad. Check out the nice variety !

We just ended a nice week of fishing with a very pleasant group of Germans. This report is going to be pic-heavy because there are so many nice pictures to share. Fishing-wise, it was very typical of the dry season: windy, and action-packed. There have been really good numbers of roosterfish since January, and we can now say 2018 is a really nice millésime for those roosters. Jacks were also crazy, one boat caught over a 100 of them in one day ! As always, all fish were landed on artificial lures: stickbait, poppers and jigs. What's kind of lacking this year on the Tuna Coast of Panama is the bot action on silk snappers and amberjacks. These 2 species have been very shy so far this year, but every week is different in Pedasi, so we will see what happens in the upcoming days.

The dry season came in really late this year, and so did the cold water that each year triggers the sardine run in Pedasi and on the Tuna Coast of Panama. Fishing this late February was typical of the dry season with lots of frenzy going on at the coast. We are seeing a lot of schoolie roosterfish this year, and feeding frenzy of several hundreds (or thousands !) jacks are common at this time of the year. More surprising was the presence of small yellowfin tunas mixed with the jacks and roosterfish, very close to shore in sometimes as shallow as 25 ft. deep. Many days, there was no need to go far to find small roosters, and twice during the week I got to see a roosterfish feeding frenzy almost in the mooring field, a mere 80 yards away, while preparing the boats in the morning. Captain Eduardo had a really good day with no more than 3 big cuberas at the boat (one was lost boatside), another smaller one (the one on the right in the double hookup picture below), 4 roosterfish, about 40 jacks, 8 or 9 yellowfins + the usual bits and bobs.
2 sizeable amberjacks have been caught on topwater this week, which does not happen that often down here.
The water is cold and the sardines are here "en masse", so we expect a lot of action and some nice pictures in the coming weeks, so stay tuned ! Next report will be the notorious BAaaM team from Germany who does good every year !