During the first week of April I took my first trip to the famous Tropic Star Lodge, located at Pinas Bay in the Republic of Panama. I was accompanied on my excursion by videographer Mike Anderson and angler Chris Allen both from Southern California and attorney David Wolfson from Valdosta, Georgia and his wife Cheryl. We arrived in Panama City late in the evening because of a mechanical problem with our Delta Airlines aircraft that delayed our departure from Miami. It was a short and quite comfortable three-hour flight once we finally got in the air. We stayed at the Miramar Intercontinental Hotel as the guests of the owner Mr. Herman Berne that night. Early the next morning we were flown by private plane to Punta Cocos on Island El Ray where Mr. Berne and Don Q Rum were sponsoring a two-day fishing tournament. We fished on Mr. Berne’s 58-foot Hatteras the Miramar and had a great day although never experiencing a strike. Due to our late arrival we stayed fairly close inshore perhaps explaining our lack of success. We did see one small free-jumping sail though. In the afternoon we joined the other participants for the tournament party on the beach where superb food and libation were not in short supply. We then flew on to the Tropic Star Lodge Resort, arriving before dark. After landing we were transported first by tractor and trailer and then dugout canoe to the lodge itself. What a glorious setting! The resort is tucked away in a small bay at the mouth of the river and is surrounded by a dense rain forest. It was great to see Hennie Marais and his wife Ursula again. They had recently been hired to manage the resort by owners Mike and Terri Andrews. We had gotten to know Hennie and Ursula quite well from our trips to West Africa where they had managed the Bom Bom Island Resort in Principe for seven years.
 

Pinas Bay from the air	Mouth of the Pinas River

Tropic Star Lodge Resort	Tropic Star Lodge

The next morning we went out fishing. Cold green water had moved in several weeks before our arrival and the offshore fishing had been poor to lousy for nearly all of three weeks. Our enthusiasm however was undaunted. Chris Allen and I were fishing aboard the Miss Panama with Captain Gustavo and mate Flaco. All of the thirteen boats at the resort are 31-foot Bertrams painted different colors but outfitted identically and are named after various countries, states and cities. The fishing day starts at 6:30 in the morning and stops at 3:00 in the afternoon, leaving time for a swim, hike, or a nap before dinner. Our first day was without a strike. We tried live-baiting a bonito on the bank early in the morning and later trolled lures offshore. We saw a lot of bait (schools of bonito and small yellowfin tuna) but nothing wearing a bill.

The next morning we fished the reef with live bonito once again. The bait was much easier to catch than it had been the first day. We fished one on the surface off of the outrigger and one down about forty feet on a downrigger. While over the reef we kept losing our baits to sharks. We finally started gradually easing away from the reef after we caught fresh bait but could find no billfish. Later in the afternoon we went inshore where we caught some small live jacks that we rigged with circle-hooks to be used for live bait. Trolling them next to the rocks we caught several 40-plus pound amberjack, a 31-pound leopard grouper, and an 18-pound mutton snapper. We lost several other larger grouper when our line was cut-off by the rocks. Perhaps circle-hooks aren’t the best choice for grouper fishing in the rocks due to the incredibly long drop-back that is necessary before setting the hook. One boat went 20-miles offshore and actually saw some blue water but there was no bait out there and they saw no billfish.
 

Hennie Marais	31-ft Bertrams	Dave & Cheryl Wolfson

The following day we decided to fish the rocks all day since offshore fishing had been so dismal. We couldn’t keep the small snapper near the surface off of our baits long enough to get to the bigger fish below. We finally caught a number of these 12 to 18-pound fish with strip-baits one on an 8-pound bass outfit, which was a lot of fun. In the afternoon I caught our first roosterfish, a forty-pounder that we released. David and Cheryl trolled south to the Columbian border and saw a number of sailfish and actually caught one on a bonito belly.

Our fourth day at the lodge we headed back out to the reef hoping that the water had improved. It was cleaner but still green. The bonito were fairly easy to catch as bait once again which was good since the sharks seemed to enjoy them. Finally we fished away from the reef and saw a small tailing black at about the time of slack-tide. We trolled over to him and he ate our surface bait immediately. Chris grabbed the rod and after an appropriately long drop-back to accommodate the circle-hook rig we were using set the hook. The marlin lit up and ran off several hundred yards of line. We were using 50-pound stand-up outfits that I had brought with me and Chris had a ball fighting the small male with that gear. He bested the 200-pound fish in about fifteen minutes and the black was quickly outfitted with a tag and sent on its way. Chris was ecstatic as that was the first black marlin he had ever caught. We trolled for a number of more hours and caught some 30 to 35-pound yellowfin but saw no more marlin. At about 11:00 a.m. we headed inshore to do some more rock fishing. On the way in we saw two free-jumping sailfish but could entice neither to eat any of the baits we presented. Once at the rocks we had trouble catching bait but did catch enough to have some success. We caught some more mutton snapper and amberjack and had two very large grouper close to 60 pounds in weight let go of the bait right at boat-side. Finally I caught a 58-pound Cubera or dog-toothed snapper using a live sierra mackerel for bait. We were heroes at the dock that night since Chris’s black was the first marlin caught there in almost a month and my snapper was the highlight at dinner. The group also enjoyed the sashimi appetizer the chef made from our tuna.
 

Chris’ 33# Cubera Snapper	Terry’s 58# Cubera	Chris’ 31# Grouper

The next morning all of the boats went out to the reef in the morning with us, having rejuvenated enthusiasm due to our marlin catch of the previous day. No one could catch bait there though so everyone ran back inshore to try to catch some bonito. There was not much better luck to be had there. We tried fishing for roosterfish for several hours without success and finally ran back offshore. We trolled lures since we could catch no bait. We saw another black marlin tailing again at slack-tide but this time could not get him to eat. He was not interested in our lures at all and ignored the dead bait we tried as well. If we had had some live bait I suspect we would have had similar success to the previous day, but we had none to throw his way. We trolled offshore until 1:30 in the afternoon and caught seven more 30 to 40-pound yellowfin on our marlin lures. There were huge schools of bait, acres of porpoises, and birds everywhere but no billfish. The water was cleaner but still not blue. Late in the afternoon we went back inshore to try once again for pez gallo (roosterfish) but couldn’t catch the jacks for bait either. We finally caught two just 30 minutes before we had to quit for the day and they went to waste. We couldn’t complain though. After all we had seen another marlin and had caught dinner.

We decided to try another tact our last day on the water. We started fishing inshore trying for jacks to be used as bait offshore for striped marlin or sailfish since both had been seen by some local artisenal fisherman the previous day. They usually are easily caught in the morning but once again we had difficulty finding them. Finally we gave up and went offshore with only a few in the tuna tubs. Once on the bank we were able to catch bonito for live bait fairly easily. We put out three, two on the surface and one down on the downrigger. We lost one to a shark fairly early and later after they all had died caught 5 more 30 to 40-pound yellowfin on bonito bellies. I also caught a 15-pound Dorado which was the only one seen all week. They usually are very abundant in that area this time of year. We finished the day inshore on the rocks where using strip baits we caught some more pargo (snapper), one of which was Chris’ first Cubera. Dave and Cheryl caught some nice pargo (snapper) and mero (grouper). One of their grouper was a nice 18-pounder. That tasted great at the dinner table that night. They had seen a tailing black marlin that morning but couldn’t entice it to eat even though they had some healthy live bait.

The next morning we got to sleep in an hour later and were rousted out at 6:30. We finished packing, had a tasty breakfast, settled up at the office, and said our goodbyes. We were ferried up the river in a dugout canoe to Pinas village where we were picked up by a DeHavilland Otter twin-engine charter aircraft. The one and one-half hour flight back to Panama City was uneventful. We were all somewhat tired and napped periodically. After a short stay at the Caesar Park Hotel we were taken to the International Airport and several hours later we were on a Delta flight back to Miami. It had been a great trip. The billfishing action had been less than stellar but the inshore fishing had been wonderful and the resort itself was spectacular. Few fishing resorts in the world provide the quality of service and comfort that is an integral part of the Tropic Star experience. We were truly spoiled.
 
 

Mate “Flaco”	This is a dog-tooth snapper!

Videographer Mike Anderson	IGFA Trustee Jose Luis Beistegui & friends

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