Fishing Report - 05/04/05

It was my last week of the season aboard the Ponchera in Panama and the original "Team Ponchera" showed up for a super week of fishing!  We had a mixed group of fisherman onboard this week.....Fishing with Macho were Coiba new comers Janos (Liggy) Shermahorn, Mike Nix, Dale (Bubba) Nix, and Chuck Dunster!  John Buley, Art Diedrich, and Roger Schmid teamed up with Captain Lucho. The Rudy brothers Bob and David spent the week with Captain Sergio and Team Ponchera. Pete (Texas) Collins, Ryan (flacko) Basset, Dan (Rooster) Leavens and the Coiba master Tony Tiblier kept Rito and myself laughing all week!

The one constant here at Coiba is action. The bite may be the first day or even the fourth day of the trip, but this area always seems to yield moments of spectacular action every week.  Last week started cool, but heated up each day.  Huge schools of feeding Tuna had us frustrated, finding the fish seemingly uninterested in our baits and lures, but persistence paid off and the guys saw some super catches!!!   Janos and Mike had the battle of the week landing a monster 250lb. Yellow Fin!!! Team Lucho also had their turn with the big Tuna and a few Sails offshore...after landing several nice Tuna up to 100lbs on top-water Art single handedly wrestled a fat 200 pound fish to the boat!! The Rudy Brothers fished hard all week landing several Cubera and Amberjack but grand finale for the guys was two consecutive wide open Wahoo bites including one quadruple!!

The inshore fishing was dominated with Snook, Cuberas, Roosters and nice size Amberjack! We had the chance to do some great fly fishing and the jury is still out on how many species we landed over the week!!!! Tony pulled a few tricks out of his hat and we saw some of the best (before breakfast) Snook fishing of the year. The top day of Snooking we had 18 strikes (several on Fly) and landed 6 fish!! Team Lucho found a few super size Amberjacks at Jicaron and first timer Ryan had the chance to land his first ever Rooster and Cubera!!  David Rudy also had a phenomenal Cubera on the last day estimated over 50lbs!!  The real icing on the cake was the Wahoo!! For the last two days the radio chatter was all about the Hoo's and everyone had great luck with these lightning fast swimmers!

It was a great week and a sensational way to end my Panama season!! Captain Jay and the Pesca Panama crew will continue fishing the waters off Coiba with trips well into June!  I am on my way to the frozen north looking forward to another season in Southeast Alaska aboard  the Adventurous!

Good Fishing,
Captain Travis


One of......well many!


Even Tuna eat the feathers!


You can almost see the reel spinning..... go get 'em Texas!


The "boys" and their top-water fish!!!


Art told me he would not have handed off the rod if it had killed him.
He landed this 200lber in right at 1 hour!!! Good  Job!!


The brothers with a nice Hoo catch!


Wahoo Time - nice fish Scott!


Rooster Time.... nice fish Ryan!!!


Now these guys are happy about Wahoo fishing!!!


First light bite!


Cubera Time. Nice job Flacko man!!


The fish of the week 250lbs!!!! Nice job Liggy and Mexico Mike!!!