(Florida Today) The setting could not have been more dramatic. With the ancient and rocky Coiba Island coast to our backs, we were fishing for cubera snapper in the cobalt blue waters off the Panamanian Pacific coast. Little did we know, pandemonium was about to break loose.
We were part of a 12-man fishing crew from the Melbourne area, Texas and Ohio and recently we were fishing out of one of Panama’s premier fishing resorts, Paradise Fishing Lodge. On our boat, my brother Dave Bishop from Boardman, Ohio, my friend John Johnson from Melbourne Beach and I, were having a banner five-day trip.
Earlier in the week, Dave caught his first saltwater fish, a 400-pound black marlin. Shortly thereafter, John landed a 150-pound yellowfin tuna after a bruising, back-breaking fight.
For the next few days we headed inshore, where the fishing was no less fierce. Dave and John took hefty rooster fish on top-water plugs, while I caught a 35-pound cubera snapper that proved to be a real brawler, plus some good-sized amberjacks.
Then as chance would have it we looked out past Coiba’s southern tip, and witnessed a scene that was nothing short of epic.
A gigantic school of yellowfin tuna looking to be a tenth of a mile long came boiling out of the Gulf of Chiriqui to our north, slashing into a huge pod of sardines. They passed within 20 yards of our boat, and then headed west toward the open Pacific Ocean, leaving a trail of destruction in their path.
Spinner dolphin, small dolphin known for their acrobatics, were mixed with the tuna and they swept up remnants of the feast. The scene was further accented by frigate birds, brown boobies and other sea birds swooping down to snatch bits left by the tuna.
Quickly we reeled in our bottom fishing rigs and Ricardo Cantun, the captain of our 26-foot Blue Fin center console boat, gunned the twin 150-horsepower Suzuki outboards and we were off in hot pursuit of the yellowfin. Our mate, Arturo Carrillo, worked feverishly to switch our rigs to top-water plugs.
As we bounded through the waves, trying to anticipate which direction the roiling, churning scrum of tuna, spinner dolphin, birds and baitfish would go, we pointed Ricardo to the left and, as luck would have it, we guessed right.
We stood ready with large 6-inch, 21/2-ounce Yo-Zuri Sashimi and Bull GT poppers rigged on Shimano spinning outfits. The plugs were of assorted colors of purple and orange, blue and purple and solid green, but it didn’t seem to matter to the yellowfins.
Dave got off the first cast, followed immediately by John, and I made a cast from the back of the boat.
John yelled “fish on,” and Dave followed a split second later “me too.” I chugged my popper in the middle of the melee as hard as I could to imitate a wounded baitfish and in a flash the water exploded around the lure and I felt the force of the vicious strike.
With a wild, head-shaking jerk, the tuna immediately headed north for Costa Rica at the speed of heat, peeling the line off the reel, with my rod nearly bent double.
As anyone who has ever fought tuna can tell you, it can be quite a rodeo. The deck is pitching and rolling, and if there are multiple fish hooked at the same time, the tuna seem to have an uncanny ability to tangle your lines. Meanwhile, the captain is maneuvering the boat to keep the fish from cutting the line on the propeller, and sometimes it’s all you can do to hold on. It’s an intoxicating feeling.
Some 20 minutes later, with arms knotted and backs aching, the three of us guided our fish to the gaff. We barely had time to celebrate because Ricardo gunned the twin outboards and we streaked away again for another round with the yellowfin.
By the end of the afternoon we figured we had seen thousands of yellowfin and we had eight of the prized gamesters in the kill box, ranging from 30 to 50 pounds. Most of them hit our Sashimi Bulls, and each hit with a ferocity that completely changed our ideas about top-water fishing.
Ours wasn’t the only boat to cash in on the yellowfin bonanza. By the end of the trip our 12-man crew took roughly 60 of the prized gamesters, all on top-water plugs.
As we sat down for dinner on our final evening, we all had the same question: What could possibly beat this?
The unanimous answer: nothing.