I just got back from one heck of a trip to Panama with my dad. We stayed in Panama City for 2 days and had a blast there. I'm not a city boy at all, but it was a good time. We ate way too much good food and drank WAY, WAY too many cervezas. Balboa was out beer of choice.

I actually went into out hotel casino with $20 in my pocket and played $5 blackjack for 4 hours and won almost $400! hooda thunk!

Day 2 we went to the Miraflores Lock at the Panama Canal. Pretty cool and we learned a lot about the canal.

We woke up early the next morning, rented a car and headed out to Boca Chica where we were fishing the next day. It was about a 5-6 hour drive and well worth it. Lots of cool places to see and some great little hole in the wall places to eat lunch.

We got to Boca Chica aroun 4:00pm and took a quick water taxi to the Panama Big Game Club.

Arrival at the dock gave me goose bumps!

We unload all our bags, and there is a "train" that takes you up to you room.
Lee, one of the owners, took great care of us and had some tuna and shrimp appetizers and cold beers waiting for us. We drank, ate, told lies and talked about fishing the next day.

This is the view on the look out tower above the club house. You can really hear the howler monkeys from up there.

At 5:00 am we get woke up by a knock at the door with coffee waiting outside. A few steps from our room, Lee made us a great breakfast and we are on our way to the boat.

We left at 6 am and cruised for about 2 hours.

When the captian slows down, I look in front of us and see birds and tuna busting everywhere!!!! We threw poppers on spinning gear for a few hours... Total tally was close to 15 yellowfins up to 30lbs and 2 skipjacks... All on topwaters! (still waiting for some pictures from my dad's camera) I had a nice (mabey 40lber) CRUSH a poper about 50 feet from the boat... I swear the stradic 8000 I was using was going to blow up! I saw the arbor of the spool 2 times. Got more than half the line back and she came off.

We run another 10 minutes, slow down and the mate hands me a 30 wide with a small squid daisy chain. I deploy that and he does the same on the other side of the boat. Mabey 5 minutes later all 4 tuna tubes are filled with bonito.... god I love tuna tubes

On the way to the big tuna grounds we found a huge log that had lots of bait on it. My dad gets a sabiki and secures 2 tink macs and 6 more blue runners in the livewell. I tossed out a popper and had 4 - 15lb (or so) dolphin follow it.... right when one of the dolphin is about to nail it, a 20lb yellowfin comes out of no where and CRUSHES the popper ...( I'm not kidding when I say she crushed it).... oh darn... another tuna We slow trolled a bonito up top and a runner on the downrigger around the log wit no luck.

We go about 20 more minutes to the tuna grounds.... I'm letting out a blue runner... just as I lock down the drag... fish on... a nice mullet snapper gets invited to dinner.

SNAPPER

We catch a few more smaller yellow fins and its slow for about an hour. The mate pulls out the downrigger again and sticks a blue runner on it. Mabey 20 minutes later the TLD 50 is singing us a song. Dumped about 200 yards of line! My dad was on the reel and brings up this gorgeous tuna to the boat in under 30 minutes. I had the pleasure of gaffing her as the mate wired her into range (almost the best part for me)

Dad's tuna hits the deck and we all celebrate, holler and scream like little girls

Lines back out and mabey 10 min. later the left rigger with the big bonito gets hit... free spool for a second... lock drag... reel, reel , reel, captian hit the throttles.... fish on!!! BIG FISH ... Line melted off the tiagra 80 loaded with 100lb. Mabey 30 minutes into the fight I almost get to the double line and she rips off anothe 300 yards like nothing. We wooped her pretty good in under an hour. The mate sticks he with the gaff and almots goes overboard. I grabed him by the belt and the captn. sticks her with another gaff. It took 3 people to get her over the gunnel! You have never heard a gringo holler and scream like I did when this one hit the deck.

We trolled for anothe 2 hours and missed 2 fish and caught 3 more smaller yellowfin (30lbs) that we let go.

GREAT TRIP! BIG BIG BIG thanks to the crew at Panama Big Game for taking great care of us!!!!

Lee cooked us lots of tuna that night and again... we drank lots of beers . The next morning we left around 9:00 am. Just before we left, 3 howler monkeys showed up and were haning out over the walkway to the dock... My dad got some good pictures with his camera. The monkeys were only 40 feet away from us.
A bad pic. I took

We hung out in David for a few and headed to Boquete. Did the zip line / canopy tour there, stayed in a hotel and headed back early the next day.

We drove back to Panama city and decided to stay at the Gamboa resort to relax.

Late the next day we are back to the rat race here in Florida!!

This post was modified at April 28, 2010 - 9:44pm (EST) by A-SALT-WEAPON