2013 was another great year of fishing for Tropic Star Lodge. Terri and Mike Andrews and their staff have worked extremely hard to maintain the very high standards set by the lodge for the last fifty years. I have been going there for twenty-two years but I had not been for the last two years. I returned over Thanksgiving for one of the 50th Anniversary Celebrations, the Tropic Star Torneo (tournament) with my team from the Cayman Islands. The lodge and beautiful grounds were immaculate as always. It was great to be back at my second home. Many of the boats had been refurbished and the staff was putting the finishing touches on the building in the middle of the dock. Sebastien Guilbard and I went from the Air Panama flight from Panama City landing in Pinas Bay straight to the dock, jumped on board the Miss Texas and were off to sea within minutes of arriving. Fellow torneo (tournament) anglers from Canada, Mike Kelly and Greg Speers plus a cohort of other Canadian regulars also hit the calm seas for a warm up day of spectacular offshore fishing.
The weather was beautiful with cloud capped mountains in the background, lots of birds and bait everywhere. Offshore there was a wonderful trash line with lots of big logs and of course… mucho dorado, we caught four good ones before a 300# Blue showed up on the left long and tracked it for what seemed like forever and then spurned a fresh dorado belly strip before turning away. It crashed the right long lure 30 seconds later and we had a couple of great jumps before the hook came out. Great start! For our second day out we got some live bonito baits at the Pinas Reef before heading offshore to the hundred fathom line. Later that afternoon we shadowed another lodge boat with angler Jim Nagy hooked up a 400 pound blue next to us and we stayed to watch the release. The marlin went ballistic on the leader. What a dramatic display by this acrobatic blue! I love capturing boat to boat action when the opportunity comes along.
Just a couple of minutes after noon a 300 pound blue crashed the right rigger lure and danced its way across the wake before I could lift my camera up and get the shot. I was mesmerized. This is what it’s all about! The blue reversed direction and charged off to the right gray hounding all the way and then ran out of gas. John did great work and we had the leader in the next fifteen minutes removing the hook and setting her free. We were on the board! Out went the lures and we had just got the pattern organized when a big fish slid up behind the right teaser. The dorsal looked like a periscope it was so tall. I fired out a small dead bonito and the shadow sat there looking at it and then flipped its tail, dorsal up and bill out mouth wide open coming on the skipping bait seemed like slow motion. The bow wave from the broad head pushed the bait aside and the marlin missed in a cloud of spray. My legs were shaking. This fish was over 700 pounds. It came up a second time and got the bonito and I came tight after a two second drop back. She pushed her head out shaking and went jet skiing away then went down for several minutes. I did not know how long this fight would last on 50# line so was ready for the long haul. The big marlin popped back up and we spun around and chased her down and got close right away. I could see her massive form gliding along with her pectorals spread wide, vivid electric blue stripes down her body and massive tail weaving back and forth. She darted away with a couple of lazy sweeps of that blue tail but we got back over her and the leader was there right away and touched the rod tip. We had two releases in thirty minutes to propel us from the outhouse to second place.
Tropic Star Lodge has just celebrated its 50th anniversary and is looking forward to another century of world class big game fishing action. If you have never been there then you need to book soon. If you have been then you need to return soon. The marlin fishing is good MOST OF THE YEAR with peaks in DECEMBER - March and again in JULY -September. The average size of the blue marlin and black marlin is 300 pounds but 500 pounders are common. The inshore fishing can be spectacular at times and the hospitality, in my second home, is simply the best. Good luck and tight lines.
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