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Billfishing's Brightest Star
by Roy Attaway
Probably nowhere else in the world can sportsmen- of any skill level-experience more angling excitement than at the luxurious Tropic Star Lodge, a remote jewel in a part of Panama that once was a favorite haunt of Zane Grey.
We reached Cocolito Reef near the Colombian border at noon, exhausted from an overnight run that began near Hannibal Bank at the far western end of Panama, about 400 miles distant.
But there was no time-nor inclination-for rest. Not even a quick catnap. Fighting fatigue was the last thing on our minds. Our fight would be with fish.And for that,we were in the ideal area, a place billed as one of the world's most incredible billfishing locales, a haven for sailfish and marlin, some of record proportions.
Almost instantly,we discovered that its reputation was not exaggerated.
Within just five minutes after Capt. Ronnie Locke and Mate Mark Staley put out a four-line set,we had hooked four sailfish.Four very excited and acrobatic sailfish.One jumped off in less than a minute, but we still were left with a solid triple-header. And in that single, bright, hectic period, all signs of weariness were banished. It was as if a cool wind had swirled out off of the mountains and embraced us. By 12:25 p.m.,we had the lines back in.And within three minutes, we had a doubleheader.
Jerry Booth, our host and owner of the 82-foot Hatteras Jerry Lynn VI, was elated. He and the rest of us were beginning an angling adventure of which dreams are made. For four hours, almost every time Capt. Ronnie spun the big sportfishing craft to present baits, sailfish slashed our offerings.
Finally, trembling from exertion and prompted by worsening weather, we decided to find our way into an anchorage. Clouds gravid with moisture boiled toward us from the east, the rain sweeping under them like heavy veils. The color of the sea went from gunmetal to pewter to almost black. Peach light limned the northern trailing edge and to the west; the sky shaded from robin's egg blue to pale lemon to saffron in irregular striations.
By the time we reached Los Centinales, the twin rocks that guard the entrance to Piņas Bay, the rain blocked all visibility. The rocks were detectable only on the radar, their images materializing like prints emerging in a cold photographic solution. Finally, feeling our way into the narrow, fjord-like bay, we saw the lights of Tropic Star Lodge rimming the beach. We were safe. Hemmed by mountain and jungle, our anchorage was one of the best on the continent, protected from all but the most pernicious surge. We went to bed early, then slept long-and late.
Our coming to Piņas was almost accidental. I had joined Jerry and his crew two days earlier in Golfito, the old Costa Rican banana port. Jerry had planned to fish that area, dipping down across the Panamanian line to explore the archipelago of islands off Chiriqui. That we had done, all right, with modest success. And then came the report over the radio: a big sailfish bite was in progress off Piņas Bay. That's when Jerry gave the order and Ronnie charted a rhumb line for Puerto Piņas.
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