The small Central American country of Panama is often over shadowed by it’s neighbor Costa Rica, but if your looking to get away from the crowds and are willing to explore, Panama is the perfect location.  I was somewhat overwhelmed when Chelsea and I arrived in Panama City and started pouring over the maps we had of Panama.  For being such a small country there is an amazing amount of coastline, lakes, and rivers to explore.  We first headed north along the Pacific coast weaving up into the mountainous jungle and back down to the broad Pacific beaches. Most of the Pacific side did not appeal to me for fishing with long featureless beaches. One exception was the small village of Boca Chica where I finally found mangrove islands, lagoons, and feisty fish. I hired a local to take Chelsea and I out in his panga and we fished along the dense mangrove for a few hours in the evening. I was fishing heaven hooking up and catching baby Tarpon, Snook, and Jacks. The fish were relatively small but there was a high population of them.

       From Boca Chica we explored some of the mountain villages and cloud-forest areas inland from the Pacific. Making out way back to Panama City we made a pit-stop at Gatun Lake for some Peacock bass fishing. Again, hiring a local to take us out on his boat we received the same weird looks when we busted out our fly rods. Having never fished for Peacocks before I desperately wanted to land at least one. My first cast was met by a hefty tug and after a little fight I landed the first of many Peacock bass. Over the next four hours I hooked and landed more bass then I could count on streamers and poppers. The fish were not the massive amazonian Peacock bass but a day on Gatun Lake with a fly rod is not to be missed.
     The next leg of the trip took us back to Panama City where we caught a very small and unstable plane to the tiny islands of the San Blas on the Caribbean side of Panama.  I hesitate to write about the San Blas islands for the fear of spoiling such an incredible place.  Visiting these islands and spending time with the Kuna Yula Indians who inhabit them was the single greatest travel experience of my life.   We stayed on a traditional island with the Kuna Yula indians called isla Tigre.  The fishing in this area is typcal reef fishing and we caught Jacks, Grouper, Grunts, and large Baracuda.  A few of the local Kuna fisherman took Chelsea and myself out in there dugout canoes to fish for that night’s dinner and explore the surrounding islands.  The archipelago consists of 400 mostly uninhabited perfect islands that I could spend a lifetime exploring.  Our three days there flew by and I’m already planning a return trip to sea kayak through the archipelago to Cartagena Columbia.