Saltwater school
Our trips to Belize are also small "saltwater seminars" as our tour leader is always and experienced saltwater fly fisherman and always available for help and advice. Read more
Panama{ 17 species for six happy anglers }2012-02-17 | Upon arrival at the camp we unpacked and made preparations far into the night - you want to be totally ready for day 1. However the guides were a little sceptical regarding our knots and several were retied, even if they were new - kind of a tough start when you have spent a lot of time tying them, but the guides have probably witnessed lots of fish lost due to bad knots and lines... The Pacific Ocean did not entirely live up to its name; we had a few windy days. However the sun was shining every day, and as the temperature was 28-30 degrees Celsius, the wind actually made it quite comfortable to be out there fishing. On the other hand you frequently had to seek the coolness of shade and apply lots of suntan lotion, whenever the wind died completely. Wind and waves made fishing with big poppers for cubera snappers and yellowfin tuna difficult, but we had some entertaining fishing for a lot of species, and several really nice fish were hooked. But you hard to work hard for most fish. All the guys caught a lot of species, and it was fun to make the acquaintances of strong amberjacks providing a steady production of lactic acid in our arms almost every day. Species like red snapper, broomtail grouper, jack crevalle and roosterfish were also caught on a regular basis. The lodge owner Pascal was a very nice acquaintance to make, and with his staff they turned our stay into a genuine vacation. The food was excellent, and with daylight lasting until 7:30 pm we had time for a swim in the pool coming back from fishing - and to enjoy a cold beer or drink before dinner was served. It was also easy to become addicted to Pascal's local drinks with fresh lime, rum, cane sugar and ice, but caution was advised in the tropical heat... Back to the fishing: Some very big fish were lost and seen chasing the poppers (large cubera snappers among others), as well as some very nice fish being lost speed jigging. Despite that we caught 154 fish to 6 people distributed on 17 different species. The best fish has to be Steffen's roosterfish over + 20 kilo, which took on live bait just past midday on the first day of the trip. This incredibly strong fish virtually brought Steffen to his knees, but thankfully it all ended well. Lots of other good fish were caught as well: Red mullet snappers up to 15-17 kg, Amberjacks reaching the 18 kg mark, a broomtail grouper of 9,7 kg, jack crevalle up to 10 kg, a pompano of 4 kg, a red snapper of 7 kg, a scierra mackerel of 5 kg, a rock snapper of 6,2 kg, cubera snappers of 8-10 kg, yellow snapper, bonito, pink amberjack, big eye jack, needlefisk and different reef fish. Having arrived back in chilly Denmark one is already wishing to go back at the first opportunity to a much more pleasant climate with these strong fish! /Andreas Holm Nielsen  Steffen Faisst with a beautiful 20 kg+ roosterfish caught on live bait.  Group leader Andreas with a red snapper.  Freddie Lynge Nielsen with a rock snapper.  Jakob Eckberg with a broomtail grouper of app. 8 kg.  The bigest amberjack of the week, almost 18 kg, and sore arms for Andreas.  Andreas with a 13 kilo roosterfish. |