We had a fantastic trip with good friends, Laurie & Julie Wright to the Tropicstar Fishing Lodge, Panama to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary. The lodge was exceptional, the fishing good and the company great. Our group caught 7 marlin for the 5 days – ranging from 150-500lbs, both black and blue marlin (predominantly black with plenty of dorado and yellowfin tuna mixed in).
We enjoyed watching the Panamanian crews at work. Very sharp and skilled in every aspect of the way that they fish there. An amazing place to experience and hope that we can get back there again one day.
Since our return we have fished light tackle from Cairns with the usual Autumn species on hand, mixed bag days of Spanish mackerel, yellowfin tuna, giant trevally and Northern bluefin tuna. We raised a small sailfish on our mackerel gear the other day, though couldn’t manage to switch him to a pitch bait. I estimated him at only around 10-15 kgs. Looking forward to the light tackle winter months where the smaller marlin and sailfish are usually around in good numbers.
I’ve had the one barra fishing trip since returning home with good friend Glenn Campbell. We had a successful time, catching lots of barramundi with plenty of big ones. I’ll be heading off again to the Cape this Friday and looking forward to what should be another great Cape York experience.