Search by tags Panama
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Music to Their Ears
Fish have lines that run laterally down their midsection, allowing them to detect movement and change in their environment. The lines relay messages about anything from dangers to their next meal, in some cases by sensing magnetic fields and electrical ... -
Call it Lunch
Fishing anywhere, including Panama, often means spending a lot of time on a boat far from shore and out of reach. This equates to spending many hours in close confines with people you may or may not know very well. Adding these hours up over several days and ... -
Arrivals and Departures
You get a first class outbound ticket, with visions of a cold gin and tonic in your hand, flying high above the azure waters of the Caribbean enroute to the jungle paradise of Panama. In your dreams, the stewardess is smoking-hot and wears a kinky little ... -
Tuna Time
Recently, there was legislation in Panama that somewhat hog-tied the commercial purse seine fishing industry by prohibiting them from fishing in certain areas and waters. In comparison to other areas of the world, the tuna fishing in Panama is top notch and ... -
Sailing is Another World
Being at the crossroads of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the country of Panama sees its fair share of boats. These boats include sportfishing boats, battleships, car carriers, grain ships, dredges, tugboats and the occasional submarine. In between them ... -
Gracie's Marlin
Gracie’s Marlin, all eleven hundred and fifty pounds or so of her, represented a pinnacle of sportfishing. It was, for all purposes, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Being an eclectic mix of luck, art and pure sweat equity, the capture of a ... -
Baby / Marlin
My dad hates hospitals so when it comes to such events as delivering babies, which perch on the edge of happiness and mayhem, you’ll probably find him on the Picaflor rather than in Labor & Delivery. So it worked out well for him when, at the time ... -
Fishing Mojo (Or Lack There Of)
When fishing in Panama, we are a very superstitious lot. After many years of spending time on the back of a boat, I have found that the success comes in spurts, where complete mayhem can overtake day’s worth of drilling holes in the ocean in a moment’s ... -
Fright Night
It was late in December and the rains of the Darien had barely subsided. Leaves large as a human heads floated on the surface of the blackened water at Mama Nido’s anchorage. The logs, interspersed in the debris, looked like crocodiles. The bats' wing ... -
Buying the Hooker
The banal notion of operating a second sportfishing boat in Panama, much less a large mothership, was somewhat overridden by our high school lust for the 48 foot G&S “the Hooker.” It seemed that, once again, my brothers, dad and I had become ... -
The Madam and the Hooker
In the mid-eighties, a Houston man named Jerry Dunaway had an idea. The oilfield business had waned; with this, came the availability of cheap iron in the form of drilling rigs, associated equipment, and, of course, big steel boats. So, he bought an old ... -
Muchas Problemas
When Adolfo told me that the village elders in Playa Muerto were restless, I believed him. We sat on the bridge of Picaflor, a short distance from the sand spit of beach that hides their village from plain view. A day of sloppy offshore fishing had brought ... -
Gone Haywire
In the open waters of Panama, even the simplest things are hard to come by. For one, there are no true marinas, much less dock facilities. There are no places to fill boat tanks with fresh water, or much less a garden hose for washing down the gear after a ... -
Say "Cheese!"
My brother Wade had convinced me, despite previous visits, to head to Playa Muerto again. “Adolfo wants to see his dad and mom.” He said on the back deck of Mama Nido after a day of below average fishing and crappy weather. “Let’s look for ... -
Our Boat, Ourselves
Picaflor is like a modern gladiator ring. The teak floored cockpit is an arena of victory and defeat, joy and chaos, triumph and murder (of the fishing kind). It is here where grown men have been humbled on the rod, where broken and bruised egos reside in ... -
Tropic Star
Fishermen from all walks of life must have a bucket list of species, places, and methods of fishing that they wish to accomplish. For some, this may be landing a ten pound bass in their lifetime. For others it may be catching a permit on the fly rod. For ... -
The Women of the Darien
Like Captain Adolfo and the crew of Picaflor, the Embera-Wounaan Indians are mostly a very friendly lot. They inhabit the regions surrounding the Darien Jungle and live primarily by subsistence farming, fishing, and most recently, tourism. They are also ... -
Rainy Season
When you conjure up an image of the tropics, it's probably filled with bikini clad beauties and palm trees on clean sandy beaches. Or it may be snorkeling in between coral heads of turquoise water mere yards from a sun chair where a fresh plate of guacamole ... -
Fishing "Indian Style" in San Jose
With the welcoming of Mama Nido to Panama, many opportunities to fish different areas were opened. The mothership housed enough fuel to allow Picaflor and her crew to stay safely along side for almost a month at a time. With this came the availability ... -
Bless this Nest
Mama Nido shone against the rust bucket fleet of tired Gulf Shrimpers that sat near the fuel dock in Conn Brown Harbor. Her sleek, made-over body squatted under the weight of thirteen thousand gallons of fuel, supplies and provisions that were put on for the ...
