My Panama Fishing Goals: Lessons Learned from Personal Failure

Apr 15

Prior to heading to Sport Fish Panama Island Lodge I outlined five primary goals for the trip, and I’m only semi-proud to say that I accomplished four out of five. In baseball, that .800 batting average would put me in the Hall of Fame, but in this particular case it left me a little dejected.

Goal number one – catching a topwater tuna – was no problem. I achieved that one on the first bait ball we encountered. Asking more questions and taking more video were relatively simple as well. I also got to gaff a tuna on the second-to-last day, and while it wasn’t pretty or efficient, eventually he shed blood on the deck.

Unfortunately, the goal that I expected to be the biggest challenge proved insurmountable. I could not finish off the one triple-digit yellowfin that I hooked. I had no issues with the 15- to 60-pounders that crushed our topwaters regularly, but on our third day of fishing as we popped a few up something grabbed the live bait that the mate had set off the back of the boat. I was the first one to the rod and as the circle hook took hold I knew that I had something bigger-than-usual at the end of the line.

I fought the fish for over 20 minutes but it showed no signs of tiring. Eventually, I needed a break. My friend Ray Heredia took the rod and worked at it for the same amount of time before his wife Sandee spelled him. Then I took it back and Ray finished the job. All told, it was over an hour of group effort to get that 130-pounder in the boat. I honestly don’t know what we would have done with a 200- or 300-pounder, so while I’m happy we finished the job, I’m a bit distraught that I couldn’t do it myself.

Here are three lessons learned from the experience:

I need to be in better shape. Simply put, at 51 I’m not what I was at 31 and certainly not what I was at 21, and even then I was never in the greatest shape. A year of pandemic-related laziness hasn’t helped the matter any. If I’m going to chase these fish again, and win the battle single-handedly, I need to turn the tables and have more upper body strength and better cardiac fitness, too.
I need to improve my technique. A 4-pound bass may escape your hook, but he’s not going to completely overpower you. Nor will a 14-pound bass for that matter. But a 100-pound tuna is a solid mass of muscle that’ll take advantage of any opening you give it. While I need to improve my strength, I also need to know how to use the quality tackle to its best advantage. People smaller and weaker than me, and even children, subdue these fish every day because they let the gear do the work.
There’s no shame in passing the baton. While I’m disappointed that I wasn’t able to complete the job on that one big yellowfin by myself, I’m not going to beat myself up over it. If I’d stayed the course perhaps I could have powered through, but I might then have been destroyed for the remainder of the trip. That in turn might have resulted in worse form and more lost fish. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.

And one bonus lesson:

Footwear matters. Popping for tuna is the most frantic and athletically-challenging form of fishing I’ve ever done. It requires moving around the boat at high speed, going from the elevated deck to the floor and back again. I thought I could get away with flip flops or bare feet, but after day one I realized that was asking for trouble. Fortunately my friend Elliott Stark had brought an extra pair of super-grippy Xtratuf deck shoes and he loaned them to me for the remainder of the trip.

The good news is that we’re probably going back to put these lessons into action. Email us if you’d like to join us on a future trip or if you’d just like more information about one of the most exhilarating on-the-water experiences we’ve ever tried.