Fishing in Panama, Playa Reina, Mariato has been spectacular for the month of December. The Tuna Coast and the area around Cebaco Island are rapidly changing seasons. Dry season “Verano” has arrived in full swing. Blue skies, offshore winds, and clear blue water are now the norms. The water temperature was still in the low 80’s at the beginning of the month but, is dropping by the day. We predict by months end the temperature will be well into the ’70s.
Live bait seemed to be a bit more challenging to catch on sabikis, but the Coinuja we did catch were bridled and immediately taken by various reef donkeys using Diamond circle hooks. With the dry season winds whipping we stayed on the southern end of Isla Cebaco fishing at Sombrero rock and Cebaco banks the main reef called Savory. All the tuna we caught were footballs in 10-25 pound range. It seems the big schools of tuna have not shown up yet. While we could not find the big tuna we did have great success with the Mahe.
Seemed everywhere we went we found drift lines and the current barriers between green and blue water which were loaded with dorado. We also had great fishing at Punta Mariato and Aguja reef both producing trophy size amberjack and roosterfish on live bait. We also had our hand at using artificials, mainly jigging and popping.
We had just received a shipment of Prohunter Jigging rods matched with Shimano Saragossa reels. They worked much better than the Diawa setups we had used the previous season. Cudakilla.com did a great job getting the rods in an easy and quick manner so that we were prepared for the seasons to start. Our the sponsor, Dan Harley at Temple-reef.com sent us a couple of Ronin popping rods matched with Shimano Twin Power.
The rods are absolute magic. Although they were overkill for the small tuna we were catching they were a pleasure to use because the balance of the rod and reel was so perfectly matched. We ended up catching a ton of dorado and tunitas on the rods as well as a decent rooster on a popper.
