Finally planning a mid or late Feb trip to the Panama Hannibal Bank area on a friend's boat. I've fished the Cabo troll/live boat striped marlin fishery once and SoCal long-range once, but otherwise am a newbie to the West Coast fisheries. Besides the usual list of daytime inshore and offshore targets shown on the CR/Panama websites, I'm wondering what's available there for overnight action.
Swords - anybody fish for them at night over there, what depth, bait depth, presence of squid to jig for live bait, etc.?
Makos - same q's?
YFT - anybody chunk or live bait them at night over there and what class of fish are typically there in mid or late Feb?
Deep drop bottom fishing - what depths, what species and size to expect, bait preference, etc.? Seen some pics of decent size black grouper and wondering if there are other deep targets like tiles or exotics over there.
Fished there last February, going back in two weeks. The deal there is primarily live bait, big baits for black and blue marlin, slightly smaller for cubera and roosters. Yes you can deep jig or surface pop for snapper, tuna, aj, grouper etc. Night time we relax, the days exhaust you. The place is full of sharks, I don't know about mako's, but sharks are a problem when we are fishing for roosters and snappers with live bait. I would think that fishing with dead bait for makos would be an exercise in futility. You will get mugged up by every other type of shark except mako's. You can spend your time and maybe get a sword or you can spend your time and definately get marlin. Your choice, it's a great area.
Last edited by Captain Rich Adler; 02-01-2010 at 10:13 PM.
We'll definitely be focusing primarily on the day billfish and roosters but I'm also interested in experimenting at night after the day fishing. I'm in ever-ready bunny mode on a trip like this and sleep can wait until after the trip or after I see that either the shit sharks are too much or the odds of quality fish at night are going to be more work than it's worth.
If nobody there has done much night fishing on some of the better structure and current combinations then that would seem to be a pretty good reason to try it. Only live once and maybe the Hannibal area will be like The Point was 40 or 50 years ago...
LOL.....I thought I could fish all day and all night too.....you just wait until you get out there in that heat, drink 10 beers, pull on 4 marlin, 25 tuna, and everything in between, ALL day long, then tell me if you are still standing at midnight???? If you are, I would assume you are on some funny stuff.......
BTW, if you are smart, you will load the tanks with Cabbies at night, as every live bait translates into a fish. We made 100 - 200 pieces per night.......on occasion, we would drop down at night and catch horse eye jacks, bluefin trevally, and Pargo......
Writer & photographer for Marlin, Sport Fishing, Saltwater Sportsman, Bluewater Boats, etc
re: Panama
I will be very interested to see what you come up with if you fish at night and would love to see some pics and descriptions. I have only been to Pinas Bay ( where Tropic Star is) so I can't comment on that area yet (though I will be going back this Friday to Panama to a mothership operation near Montuoso called Cebaco Bay) but the inshore fishing and bottom fishing that I have seen in Panama is the best I have experienced anywhere, ever. It's what I imagine fishing was like 50 or 60 years ago in a lot of spots. Fish like these were not uncommon catches when I was there.
You see mounts on the wall and think "Gosh, just once I'd love to catch that" and then the next day it can actually happen.
It will also be interesting to see if you can stay up that late, because you will indeed be roasting! It's worth it though. Please tell me how it was if you do any outside the box fishing!
Jon Schwartz
Fishing Articles, Photography, and Travel http://www.bluewaterjon.com/
Blog: http://bluewaterjon.blogspot.com/
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