February Fishing Report
The month of February was a productive month for us here at El Rio Negro Sportfishing lodge located on Panamas famed tuna coast. We continued to have strong north winds all month long which kept the water temperatures offshore in the mid-seventies for the entire month.
The exciting news for the month was the hordes of tuna starting to show up for the seasonal migration through the “gauntlet”. Which starts at the Azuero Peninsula runs through Cebaco bank in route to Isla Jikarita and Jicaron of the Coiba archipelago and ending at the Hannibal bank and Isla Mountousa (Coiba marine park). This outer mark off of Cebaco Island produced endless schools of tuna all month long. We caught them on jigs, poppers, cedar plugs, and deep diver lures. We would start the day running along the Cebaco Bank until we would spot birds and working porpoise. As luck would have it this tuna season here on the tuna coast has been nothing less than superb. When we got tired of catching tuna we had some spectacular days catching reef donkeys on the inshore side of the Azuero Peninsula and Cebaco Island.
We hosted 3 groups in the month of February 2019. The Morris group which arrived in the first week had a great few days of bending rods. The first couple of days we fish on the leeward side of Cebaco Island and the south side of the Azuero Peninsula in order to protect us from the strong north winds. We stuck to jigging and fishing with live bait which produced some decent Amberjacks. Once our bonita died in the tubes we decided to fish with chunk bait over a few of our honey holes and sure enough, Mr. Morris landed his long sought after Cubera Snapper. It was a good day of fishing. Mr. Morris and his boys caught Amberjack, Broom tail grouper and Cubera snapper on their first couple days.
The next couple of days we spent chasing tuna. We ran out past Cebaco bank and covered about 20 miles before we came across porpoise and birds working together. This took place during the last two days. Tuna was in the same area feeding on deepwater squid with the birds eating the surfacing scraps. We used Halco poppers along with a variety of pro hunter poppers which worked very well. All in all, it was a great week of fishing, dozens and dozens of tuna on topwater action and a nice mix bag of other species.
The Miller group arrived Feb 11th and was adamant on jigging for bottom fish. This group had fished and chased tuna before with us and had caught their fair share so they elected on this trip to go after monster amberjack on pro hunter cyclops jigs and live bait. We soaked baits on several different reefs near sombrero rock at the south end of Cebaco Island and hooked up on a few average size pacific amberjack called Bojala here in Panama. The following day we went to the south end of the Azuero Peninsula called Punta Naranjo and finally caught the reef donkey the miller group was looking for. Along with amberjack they also landed roosterfish and a few broadtail grouper live Coinuja which they caught on Sabiki rigs.
The Last group we had for the month was Chris Atkins and party from Central America Fishing. They were looking for a mixed bag of species but also did not want to venture far offshore or deal with any long runs. So we came up with an efficient strike plan to fish nearby Cebaco Island and Punta Naranjo at the tip of the Azuero Peninsula. The first day was quite slow until after 1 pm when we came across some birds and picked up a few tunas on poppers. The next two days came alive both with the top water action and the bottom fishing. We fished live bait at Isla roncador at the southern end of the Azuero Peninsula which produced Broomtial grouper and a couple of medium size Cubera Snapper. Once the north wind died down after lunch time we were able to run about 10 miles offshore of the southern tip of the Azuero where we found large pods of porpoise. Of course with the pods of porpoise comes the hordes of Panama tuna. We ended up filling the cooler with all topwater action using pro hunter poppers. All in All the boys from Central America Fishing ended up with the mixed bag they were looking for.
