Jigging World's First Trip to Panama Sports Fishing Lodge!! (picture heavy)

[jiggingworld]

Just back home from 4 days fishing trip to Panama Sport Fishing Lodge. This is my best fishing trip ever..
Ben & Mike are from Boston, Ken and I are from NJ. We arrived at lodge around 11:00PM. took us 8.5hours from Panama air port to lodge(bad tires, driver had low profile tires and one of them blow up, thank god we had 2 Master technicians.) Next time we will let driver take our gears only to lodge and we will fly to the lodge)

We fished with Capt Chichi, on his 31ft stamas CC with twin F250s, very nice rig, nice casting plat form in the bow and stern. wide beam made us fishing very comfortable. first couple days fishing were not so good, we only had 4 snowie groupers first day, and lost 3 nice tuna on second day, 100lb hollow braid line brake, 100lb leader broke, and pulled hook. ??? ??? ??? first two fish took starwalk sinking stick bait and second one took Dorado slider. third fish took live bait.

Third day started even worse, one of the engine keep turning off, Capt chichi spend a lot time try to fix it but were not able to. But all the luck changed after we saved a dying sea turtle, she was tangled with a lot of nylon ropes. She keeps diving deep if we are getting closer, Mike casted a jig with single assist hook and able to get the turtle and brake the ropes off. after that, somehow the engine started work again, and we were able to get 2 tuna on live bait.

our last day of fishing were excellent. tuna were every were, we got 13/15, kept 4 and released rest..

Special thank to Mike Garone to deliver our prototype Slow Pitch 300g Jigging rod right before the trip(landed 4 yellow fin up to 70lb).

PSFL is going to be our annual fishing destinations, thanks to John, Capt. Chichi and all the staff.

Rods:

JW Ghost Hunter Popping rods (100g, 150g, 200g)
OTI Tuna snapper
JW Ghost Hunter jigging rods(250g, 350g, 450g)
Blackhole 450g Cape Cod Special
Ghost hunter slow pitch jigging rod 150g, 300g(prototype)

Reels:
2008 Stella 10000, 18000
2013 stella 10000, 18000
Shimano Talica II 12
JW Hurcules 40C, 50C, 60C

Lines:
Curtland, JB, Daiwa Boat Braid.
Yozuri, Seaguar.


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Tight lines!

Yong.

[jiggingworld]

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pulled out from ocean, looks like they got spooled!!

[Captain Rich]

"PSFL is going to be our annual fishing destinations, thanks to John, Capt. Chichi and all the staff. "

Great photos but why whould you keep using this lodge ? I know this area very well. You had tire problems, boat engine problems, and this is the lodge that had an explosion and fire this winter that killed one American and burned another.... You figure they have used up all of their bad luck ? :eek: There are a lot of other lodges down there, you should look around a little more. There is Panama Big Game Club, Isla Seca's Resort, and Capt. Tom Yust on Coiba, all 3 fish the same waters and have a better safety record. If you are going to be a tour operator and take your buddys fishing, you need to know about stuff like this.

http://360tuna.com/index.php?/topic/37604-panama-sportfishing-lodge-fire-1-dead-1-injured/page-2

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1075852

[Dino]

Good report, excellent photographs and nice job on the turtle rescue! PSFL is a very controversial topic on 360tuna, with most guys swearing by it and others just swearing to never return. the reports out of this place are just unreal though.. thanks for sharing. what is the jig that took the snow is that a 200gr Drift tune?

[MVP]

Thanks for the report and pics

[Pauls1976]

I have stayed there a few times. The lodging is great, issues we had and hear about is with boats. Twice we had mechanical issues with the boats, crew did not let the manager/owners know.

Location is great, will get better when the NJ/NY flights go direct to David.

There are a bunch of lodges that people swear by but unless you try different ones, you will never know the advantages or disadvantages of them. We have since found one that we love and probably will never leave.

[jiggingworld]

"PSFL is going to be our annual fishing destinations, thanks to John, Capt. Chichi and all the staff. "

Great photos but why whould you keep using this lodge ? I know this area very well. You had tire problems, boat engine problems, and this is the lodge that had an explosion and fire this winter that killed one American and burned another.... You figure they have used up all of their bad luck ? :eek: There are a lot of other lodges down there, you should look around a little more. There is Panama Big Game Club, Isla Seca's Resort, and Capt. Tom Yust on Coiba, all 3 fish the same waters and have a better safety record. If you are going to be a tour operator and take your buddys fishing, you need to know about stuff like this.

http://360tuna.com/index.php?/topic/37604-panama-sportfishing-lodge-fire-1-dead-1-injured/page-2

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1075852


I never visited other lodge so I cannot tell how are their operations. Tire issue is just a small problem. They have many diffrent drivers and we had bigger van when we go back to panama city. We saw John and other Capt stay very late to maintenance two of the other boats. We fill very safe other wise we will not go back again. They have their own fulling truck right now that holds 900 galon full.

Yong.

[jiggingworld]

Good report, excellent photographs and nice job on the turtle rescue! PSFL is a very controversial topic on 360tuna, with most guys swearing by it and others just swearing to never return. the reports out of this place are just unreal though.. thanks for sharing. what is the jig that took the snow is that a 200gr Drift tune?

PSFL is man's heaven. Can't wait to go back again. Capt said June is the best month for bigger yellow fin tunas. I migt go back again if I have chance.
that jig is JW-A083 300g. belly glow. my favorite jig for bottom fish. caught a lot of groupers.

http://www.jiggingworld.com/jw-a083-300g/

yong.

[Captain Rich]

I never visited other lodge so I cannot tell how are their operations. Tire issue is just a small problem. They have many diffrent drivers and we had bigger van when we go back to panama city. We saw John and other Capt stay very late to maintenance two of the other boats. We fill very safe other wise we will not go back again. They have their own fulling truck right now that holds 900 galon full.

Yong.

Their own filling truck wasn't the problem, storing gasoline and propane immediately adjacent to the guest room was. They were warned about it, chose to ignore it and a guest paid the ultimate price. Now they have their own filling truck, that they park on their property.....yes that will be very safe too, because gasoline never explodes :eek:. Panama Big Game Club and Tom Yust run diesel boats....I wonder why ??? (not sure about Isla Secas)

[Bucktailboys.com]

Yong,
Thanks for the report and pics...just added one more to my bucket list :D

[Captain Rich]

Yong- This is the last I'm going to post about this, I hope you think about it. When you opened your tackle shop, if you needed a certificate of occupancy from a building inspector, would he pass you if you had gasoline stored in the back ? Obviously not. If your shop blew up, and you killed and burned customers, would you be allowed to reopen within a couple of weeks ? Again, obviously not. These guys reopened a few weeks later and were posting fishing reports on another site. That bothers me a lot, and I'm sure the families of the victims are furious. I think when you go to 3rd world countries you need to keep both eyes open and not believe everything that property managers tell you.

[bowguide]

Great trip Yong. We love this place... Going down with 20 guys this week for the annual tagging tournament and Im sure its gonna be another epic trip.

[jiggingworld]

Great trip Yong. We love this place... Going down with 20 guys this week for the annual tagging tournament and Im sure its gonna be another epic trip.

Hi. Scott, Can't wait to go back again. Capt. Chichi said bigger tuna show up in June. 50~70lb is perfect size for us but want to tangle with 150 pounders...

Yong.

[bowguide]

Hi. Scott, Can't wait to go back again. Capt. Chichi said bigger tuna show up in June. 50~70lb is perfect size for us but want to tangle with 150 pounders...

Yong.

thats why we picked these dates right after the full moon...hopefully we hit it right. Glad you had a good trip