Fishing Lake Gatun
Tuesday, 03 August 2010
Written by Matt Landau
The Panama Report
I don’t know if it was always this way, but for as long as I can remember Lake Gatun has supposedly been chock-full of fish. Now a serious fisherman might say this and you’d take it with a grain of salt, assuming, of course, that they have all the technology and skill to make any fishing outing a smashingly successful one. But when it comes from someone like me, it is akin to hearing a former priest talk about sex for the first time. Which is to say, my expectations for fishing trips are extremely, almost unreasonably high.
9AM: We arrive at the Gatun boat ramp and I immediately fall in love with Edwin’s boat: this pontoon platform around 10 feet by 50 feet, sitting on what appeared to be a bunch of empty barrels. It had carpeting, some freestanding plastic chairs, a wooden bench and a few coolers. Kent said it reminded him of his mom’s basement.
9:30AM: After stocking up the boat with all our drinks, snacks, and typically precautionary gringo gear (sun block, hats, towels), Edwin ushered the boat out into the Panama Canal and deep into the heart of Lake Gatun where extremely dark storm clouds started forming ahead of us. On this venture towards the storm, I already wanted to get negative about the trip: a sort of Catch-22, as in order to have fun, I needed to catch fish, and in order to make that happen, we needed to drive towards the storm.
9:45AM: This was when Kent handed me my first beer and educated me on his theory of preemptive intoxication: the notion that, in cases like fishing or funerals or long-distance flights, you should expect the absolute worst and just get drunk from the start. I liked his theory and drank three beers before the clock reached.
10:30AM: Having navigated directly into the heart of the storm, we stopped on a small island to wait out the rain (and continue drinking). We stayed there, sitting around the picnic table talking about the value of calcium in orange juice. I caught a frog the size of a croissant, with my bare hands.
11AM: We are borderline drunk.
11:30AM: The rain slows slightly and we decide to take fanciful casts into the mangroves in between shots of tequila.
11:35AM: Edwin catches a peacock bass no smaller than a size 10 men’s sneaker. Several casts later, I catch one too and before thirty minutes is up, we’ve got around six fish in the cooler flopping around. I take another shot of tequila and start to think fishing isn’t that bad.
Noon: The rain stops entirely and the sun comes out in that ethereal, cutting-edge way that sun peeks through the clouds after a storm. It was religious. We get back on the boat and head for one of Edwin’s secret gullies. To be honest, I don’t even know what a gully is, but had an absolute blast referring to our location as such, repeatedly. The secret gully was best harvested by trolling and Edwin was able to pinpoint the location of small schools of fish, merely by the bubbles on the surface. He said that we’d be able to catch two fish in each school and the ensuing twenty minutes went like clockwork. We caught around twenty fish, mostly bass, and some Oscar.
1PM: We are all entirely drunk and having a grand old time eating pastrami sandwiches, listening to Lil Wayne, and catching more and more fish with every cast. Even Duncan caught a fish.
1:30PM: Edwin takes us to Monkey Island and this giddy clan of monkeys comes cascading down the trees to our boat (Kent’s mom’s boat). Anchored next to us are several boats from Gamboa Rainforest with tourists sitting neatly in lines. Having been given a long and complicated safety speech, the tourists were astounded by the show on our boat and took man pictures. We fed the monkeys Cheeto’s hand-to-hand, and what amazed me was not how much they liked Cheeto’s but how gentle and dainty their hands were. All wrinkled and hairy, but so clearly defined: a little like my grandpa. I remember clearly thinking, just at this moment, that fishing was incredible.
2PM: To aggrandize our show for the tourists, who, at this point, were more interested in our debauchery than they were the monkeys, we all decided to dive out of the boat and race a distance of roughly 200 meters to a tree stump in the middle of the lake. The tour guides on the boats tried to drive away but one gentleman in a Panama hat demanded they stay and, when we got back, asked for a beer.
3PM: We stopped at one last little bay and caught another five fish, bringing the total to about 30 or 40. On the way back, the monsoon picked up again and I asked Edwin if I could maneuver the boat through the mangroves and around the Japanese container ships at full speed. He said, “of course,” and I officially declared fishing the most spectacular pastime ever invented.
Edwin had his friend filet all our fish for something like $5 and we made fish tacos with blue corn tortillas, avocados from the trees, and fresh lime. They were outrageously good.
It was a good fishing trip for me because it reconstituted my faith in the pastime. It harkened back to the days my dad and I used to catch bluefish at the beach, and it made light of the days now when no one catches anything. Lake Gatun, as far as I’m concerned, is great whether you’re a fisherman or not. The scenery is gorgeous, the drinks are cold, and Edwin’s up for just about anything you desire. His number is 6602-9861 and he charges $25/head.
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