Along with the new year came our new boat and the strong North offshore winds of the dry season here on the tuna coast of Panama. Fishing in Panama in January means gusts up to 35 mph. This common throughout the month up and down the Azuero Peninsula. So while fishing here on the Tuna Coast, we had to be strategic. With the wind and seas, as they were, it was a good time to test our new custom built 32’ centre console sled “EL WUANDUNGO” that we added to our fleet for the 2019 season.
Our new boat performed flawlessly and was well worth the time it took to build it. One of the fun features we are now using is Gamins PANOPIX 3D CHIRP technology. It added amazing detail to the contour of the different reefs we have been fishing for more than 20 years. Water temperatures were in the range of 84 degrees early in the month but by mid-month it was in the area of 75 degrees with the cooler temperatures arriving towards the end of the month.
All of our go-to spots here on the coast of Punta Mariato produced with decent results. Pacific Amberjack and Almaco Jacks were being landed on live Coinuja (blue runners), live bonito and on butterfly jigs pretty much at will. The Wahoo were also still lingering in the area and we landed a couple using artificial deep divers. Although the larger size tuna hadn’t seemed to arrive yet, we caught multiple dozens of “football” tuna. All were landed on poppers or jigs while feeding on sardines. All were at Punta Naranjo, a quick run from the lodge, the tuna ranged in size from 15-35 lbs.
It was difficult to get deep offshore with the strong offshore north winds so we did quite a bit of bottom fishing using chunk dead bait near the coast on the tip of the Azuero Peninsula and Cebaco Island to encounter the famous Cubera snapper, which we did land and released on several occasions. As the water temperature cooled in the later part of the month we started working our pro hunter jigging rigs with a little more frequency. We did some jigging at a depth of 140 ft near Aguja Reef and found a patch of broom tail groupers which were very aggressive towards the butterfly jig bouncing on the bottom.
The wind did give a break a few days near the end of the month so we were able to make the run to Jikarita which is the southernmost island of the Coiba Archipelago. Again, we encountered acres and acres of football yellowfin tuna. We had our hand landing at will with pro hunter poppers. We also had a guest who was adamant about catching a Roosterfish on a popper and on the last day, the last hour of fishing after casting about 1000 times, he landed his rooster! His resilience paid off and he landed and released safely the fish of a lifetime fishing in Panama in January!
