On Monday, all four boats smacked yellowfin tuna. These were larger fish in the 75-110 lb range so they weren’t interested in chasing poppers, but live bait and chunked sardines did the trick. No one had any shame passing the rod off since it was only Day 1 and several tunas were brought to the boat after a team effort. I believe Oz’s 110 pounder was the biggest of the day.

On Tuesday we all stayed inshore, and the guys decided to make a bet to see which boat caught the most species of fish. Of course, they all got into the usual variety of snappers, jacks, bluefin trevally, mackerel, amberjacks, groupers, and roosterfish that we usually see out at Coiba Island, but there were a few special treats like a lady fish, blacktip shark, and African pompano. This day alone our boats caught 15 roosterfish and 12 cuberas. Only one boat however decided to fish the corner of the bay for snook, and that led young Hunter to take home the money as he landed a snook at 4:45 PM to put them over the top with twelve different species in a day. Jaime, Dakota and I decided to play around in the new panga, and we too got into jacks, roosters, and snappers. We found a current with some big logs, and there I fought (and lost) a BIG rooster on a popper, we doubled up on blue trevally, Dakota caught a nice African pompano, and Jaime showed us once again why he is a jigging master. The highlight however was Dakota and Jaime doubling up on topwater jack bites, which I filmed, and then Jaime’s jack exploded into a red splash as a huge bull shark lifted his whole head out of the water to eat it. Two seconds earlier I turned off my camera, because who wants to watch another jack being caught?? I will probably always regret not getting that on camera…

On Wednesday the boats headed back to Jicarón and Jicarita, and once again had a banner day of inshore fishing. One boat alone landed 10 cubera snapper, a nice wahoo got sharked by another bull shark, and Captain Tommy caught ANOTHER tarpon!

Thursday the boats split up as some went offshore and some stayed inshore as we made our way back to the mainland. The tuna were not to be found, but the marlin were as our boats went 1 for 3 on blacks and blues. Several sailfish were seen, but thanks to a full moon they were pretty lazy. Plenty of fortune jacks, jack crevalle, and rainbow runners were landed on jigs & poppers around Isla Montuosa, but the catch of the day was Mark (of course, the new guy!) and his huge 80-pound cubera!

Our half day on Friday was perhaps one of the best I’ve ever seen as Andrew landed a quality broomtail grouper and brothers Brian & Buddy had a nice cubera / almaco double

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Our species list for the week was:

Black Marlin

Yellowfin Tuna (17)

Wahoo

Roosterfish (20)

Jack Crevalle

Horse Eye Jack

Bluefin Trevally

Fortune Jack

Cubera Snapper (30)

Mullet Snapper

Red Snapper

Rock Snapper

Lane Snapper

Yellow Snapper

Broomtail Grouper

Speckled Grouper

Chocolate Grouper

Blacktip Shark

African Pompano

Amberjack

Almaco jack

Lady Fish

Pacific Snook

Rainbow Runner

Sierra Mackerel

Pacific Barracuda

Needlefish

TARPON on the Pacific!