America Panama Jigging and Popping Tournament!

[BretABaker]

Day 1
All the jiggers and poppers are in, and the 1st annual Jigging and Popping Panama tournament begins! The tourney is being monitored by Tony Pena that is going to do a write up. The highlights of the prefish day: YFT's hitting poppers like there is notomorrow , GanderVA catching a YFT (100#) on a popper , everyone had there fill on popping for Yft's and then tried their hand at some billfish. There was nice Blue Marlin that circled Capt. Macho's boat for 30 mins. It was big enough to try to eat the yellowfin that were being pulled in!! Richard threw a popper at it and manage to hook up to it for a bit. Perhaps it saw Tony Pena and remembered him from the alst trip??? Jack hooked a nice fish as well, more report manana
Getting picked up at the Grand Veneto

A nice Dinner before Day 1

Heading out!

Tuna on Poppers!
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Cruising

Jump!

[BretABaker]

Day 2 – TUNA TUNA TUNA

Great first day of the tournament!! While the Panamanian sunshine didn’t want to come out – the fish did! The day started at Montuosa, where the yellowfin tuna and spotted dolphin put on quite a shot. Skip Hoagland hooked up quick to a 90+ fish and TJ quickly cast out to land a 130lb yellowfin. TJ was using his OTI Tuna Sniper rod and OTI Wombat Chugger popper. That Wombat is the popper of the tournament thus far!

Throughout the day everyone was hooking up on poppers. Fish were mainly from 40-80lbs. Enjoy – more again tomorrow!


Heading out – first day of competition!


The whole group!



Nice tuna TJ!



Close-up at the dock (lure included)






Nice fish



Group Shot – lots of tuna today!


Capt Macho bringing one in!

[stickbom!]

Great photos Bret, were you guys using OTI rods exclusively?

[BretABaker]

Day 3 – More tuna and some ground jigging

Today brought with it more tuna on jigs and poppers for the tournament anglers. No one could match TJs tuna from Day 2, but there were some nice fish caught.

In addition to these fish, the anglers enjoyed some nice bottom jigging, bringing in some jigged grouper and a cubera! Hopefully I’ll get a good cubera pic and be able to post it up =)

I don’t have all the pictures yet but will keep posting them up as they come in. Enjoy!





OTI Komodo popper in Mahi took this guy!


Jigging Master rod and Daiwa dendoh, nteresting!



Jigs were also effective!


Who is gonna win it??

[BretABaker]

Great photos Bret, were you guys using OTI rods exclusively?

Hey Mike - actually I'm not there, I'm just relaying the photos and report from talking to them. I don't think they have all OTI rods. Looks like that guy in the one pic put a dendoh on a jigging master rod , interesting setup!

For other guys I'm not entirely sure. I think I see a trevala as well.

[BretABaker]

Day 4 – Snowy’s

Both group went out early today end went to Montuosa to make bait then ran to Hannibal Banks , TJ hooked up on a big Tuna (over 100#) on the first cast and handed over the rod to Guy and was lost after a 10 min. fight. Our boat seemed to have the banana curse today, losing several nice fish during the fight - but the other boat did better with Jack bringing in a nice Yft in the 100# range.

After a while of that it was on to the snowy’s! Hammered diamond jigs and OTI jigs were the ticket


As a side note – divers were able to retriece a rod and reel thought to be lost at sea!!!











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[stickbom!]

Fabulous! Thanks for sharing Bret! Oh man, the guy who dropped that stella must have been upset!!

[toppuntawong]

Hey Bret...how did he lose that Stella? just fell off his hand?

[BretABaker]

After 5 days of fishing and lots of Xtreme fishing adventure , we held the award night at the Panama sportfishing lodge outdoor pool deck. Mr. Tony Pena was kind enough to host the prize award. Lexpro team , Dan , Rich , Jack and Frank won the Cubera Snapper category as well as the second largest YFT at 110#. They worked hard all week for the fish , chasing the YFT's, deep dropping for grouper, etc. The biggest YFT went to GanderVa team , Gary , Skip , Guy, Reggie and TJ standing in for Guy the first day of the tournament. As luck would have it, TJs 130# yellowfin ended up being the winner! there were lots of big fish caught this week from YFT's on OTI Poppers and Jigs to live baiting for Marlin and "deep dropping for Grouper ". Many thanks to all anglers and the tournament sponsors ,OTI ,PSFLodge, Melton's and Grand Deli Gourmet of Panama for their contribution in making this event happen. Also thanks to Tony Pena and his wife Sabrina for coming down to cover the tournament. ( next years tournament will be held in Febuary 2010)

Tourney Banner



Cubera Prize


Winning Tuna team


Not a bad prize…


Yum!


Friendly Locals


The group