The months of August and September came with consistent rain each month here in Veraguas. The town of Mariato is at its slowest pace of the year as we reach the deep part of green season here on the tuna coast of Panama. Although we had to contend with the typical thunderstorm, the fishing was still rewarding. Due to the rain, the water visibility was very dirty because of the constant river rain runoff up and down the tuna coast.
We did find some blue water when we ventured 30-40 miles further offshore. The tempetures were in the 81-85 degree range. We were able to find a few significant drift lines but we were only able to land a few dorado trolling black bart plastic squids. We did find that the drift lines were loaded with football tuna which we caught a variety of ways including with halco poppers and DUO Japan swim baits on light spinning gear.
It is shrimp season so we did run across a few shrimp boats pulling their nets and its always fun to see what we can pick off the stern of the shrimper. We did this numerous times and each time we were rewarded with tuna, sierra and small dorado. We fished most all the areas offshore of the western azuero peninsula as well as many spots around Cebaco island. The fishing we did around Cebaco was mainly using live bait while drifting over a few of our favourite spots including Hutch and pinner reef. Another spot we fished is called bones rock just off shore of Sombrero rock (the southern tip of Cebaco) here we hooked up with cubera snapper as well as a nice african pampano. Before we headed in on our last day we stopped by Aguja reef about 16 miles from the lodge and we bridled a couple live bonitos and within 40 minutes we were dancing with a decent size black marlin. After getting a few nice runs on us she spit the hook about 15 feet from the boat.
Although it was rainy and stormy many of the days we still consistently bent rods and tugged on some fun sized fish. Back at the lodge every evening we enjoyed fresh sushi made from the tuna and dorado we had caught during the day. We also had fresh sashimi and ceviche made from the fresh grouper, snapper and tuna we landed during the trip. Even with all the fresh fish being cooked and served all the guests were able to take a cooler of frozen filets back stateside.
