This is a "got to do before you die holiday

Paradise Lodge, Panama

28th December 09 – 11th January 10

Before we start we would like to thank Peter Collingsworth from Angling Direct Holidays for all the help and support he gave us both before and during the holiday. We have travelled to various countries around the world on fishing holidays, using various Companies and can honestly say that Angling Direct are by far the best.

We arrived at Heathrow at 5.30 am on Monday 28th December, checked our luggage in, went through security etc. We had allowed 4 hours as there had been a security scare a couple of days before and knew everything would take longer. At 8am we were told to go to the gate where we would have to go through another security check. It was absolute bedlam as everyone had to empty their hand luggage on to the table and they went through everything as well as giving everyone another body search. We eventually got on the plane at 10.30am but it didn’t take off for another ¾ of an hour. As we landed in Houston, Texas, we saw our connecting flight to Panama take off. We contacted the airlines and were informed they had booked us on a flight the following morning and that our luggage had been forwarded to that flight. So there we were no luggage, no hotel etc, and worried that we should have been on an Internal Flight across Panama the following morning. Not knowing what else to do we phoned Peter (by this time it was 9pm in England) we did not really expect him to answer but he did. He told us not to worry as he will take care of everything just to book ourselves into a hotel for the night and he would make all the other arrangements and to phone him back in the morning.

The following morning after a call to Peter we got on the flight to Panama which took about 4 ½ hours. We would have to spend the night there as he was unable to get us an internal flight until the following day but we now had our luggage and clean clothes with the piece of mind knowing that everything else had been taken care off. Panama City is small, vibrant and growing day by day with buildings going up everywhere. We had a lovely room on the 21st floor of the Radisson Decapolis with views across the bay and the city.

After a very nice breakfast, we set out for Marcos A. Gelabert Airport, which is about 20 minutes in a taxi. Our flight was about 50 minutes on a small plane and we were met at the airport by the Paradise Lodge driver and 2 ½ hours later we arrived at the Lodge. As we stepped out of the car WOW, had we died and gone to heaven? The scenery was absolutely spectacular. We have visited many countries in the past but have never been this stunned. If it had taken a week to get there, it would have been worth it!




Our accommodation was wonderful, very comfortable and clean and added to that you got the same amazing views from the windows especially at sunset. We had a very enjoyable lunch in the open-air lunch and met Chad the owner and designer of Paradise Lodge. Chad is easy going with a happy, relaxed personality who looks after his staff, who in turn cannot do enough for the guests. He was quite surprised we did not want to go fishing straight away but we had decided to have a relaxing afternoon getting the fishing kit ready for the following morning.

Now for the part you have all been waiting for, the fishing!!

You are woken at 6am if you are not already up and breakfast is at 6.30. You are then driven down to the dock where your boat, captain and mate await you. Our captain was called Chichi (who rumour has it used to be the captain for the ex president of Panama) and we had young Boris as the mate. After a short discussion of what species we wanted to catch, we set off. Our target fish were sailfish, tuna, roosterfish and black marlin. We had to catch our bait first which mainly consisted of bonito. These were kept alive by being placed face down in tubes containing water. This live bait was used for trolling to catch the sailfish and marlin. We did discover that this method had a problem – The BAD porpoise. These large porpoise seemed to hunt alone and had learnt the knack of stealing your bait leaving only the head with your hook still in it. As soon as you spotted one you had to reel as quickly as you could to try and save your bait but most of the time they won the contest. The GOOD porpoise on the other hand were very helpful, hunting in schools to round the tuna up for you.

Over the course of the next 9 days we fished on the Hannibal Bank and around the islands of Coiba, Jicaron and Montuosa. We trolled, jigged and popper fished. We caught a black marlin, 4 sail fish, rooster fish, yellow fin tuna, skip jack tuna, cubera snapper, rock snapper, red mullet snapper, jack cravelly, blue fin trevally, dorado, shark and lots of other species that we cannot remember the names of.

The shear size of some of the fish was incredible and of course you want to see the ones that got away!!

This is a "got to do before you die holiday". We would definitely recommend it and yes we will be going back as soon as we can.

John & Lesley Shury