June, 2005

Ken Murray, who had never shot a wahoo before,  jumped in the water first just to check out the conditions and see if the spot was diveable.  As the bubbles cleared and he rose to the surface, he lifted his head and gave the report we all like to hear—“Wahoo—- under the boat !”

    Ken, a white sea bass diver from Santa Barbara had emailed me out of the blue and said he was finishing his engineering exams and wanted to come visit me in Panama, hopefully to hunt wahoo. I cautioned him that this was the rainy season, too early in the year and that no one was shooting any, but IF he wanted to come down and enjoy the adventure of whatever unfolded—then that was great. It is a tribute to our sport that so many of us will commit, in advance,  to spending many days in very close contact with someone we have never met before. My experience is, that our shared love of the ocean, and the type of person attracted to our sport,  almost guarantees that the person showing up will be turned on, adventuresome,  enthusiastic and athletic. Ken was certainly all those things and a good cook, helpful and agreeable as well.

    We had decided to dive one gun so Ken did not have to deal with bringing a “pistola” and could bring other important supplies like peanut butter, slip tips, and insect repellant etc.  The first day in Panama we spent rigging and organizing everything for an early departure the next day.  The stuff you need, including ice and boat gas, to dive and survive a six day trip to the boonies is incredible, but with two divers and a driver, all seems to fit perfectly into a panga. After a long drive and a good night’s sleep we rose at 4:30 AM to hit the high tide necessary to avoid the rocks and exit the river mouth. It is a wonderful feeling to be on the ocean at sunrise, warm, free, and excited about what suprises were awaiting us. I was just hoping that Ken would get to see a wahoo in the next four days,  so with his report of Wahoo under the boat, I had the feeling this would be a successful trip.

    In the first 30 minutes of the four days of diving, we each had shot two wahoo and our icebox was full.  What a dilemma!  So we decided to go back to the beach and trade most of the wahoo for some ice and another ice chest so that we would be free to hunt again. On the way in, we passed a fisherman in his small dugout who was being towed around by a big fish on his handline. Over an hour later we came back by and he was still being towed by the fish he had not seen yet. He thought it was a big roosterfish but we did not wait around to see what it was.

    We went to the next spot I knew about and again there were a lot of wahoo and these were even bigger. They seemed to concentrate in one place whereas 100 yards away there was nothing. We also saw the first big shark that I have ever seen here. He was stubby and fat with a big head and big mouth but did not threaten us. Ken shot two more wahoo, his best being 48 lbs, I shot one 58 lbs and our boxes were full again. This was our first day and we were lining up on 35 and 40 lb wahoo and letting them pass. We headed for the camp on Coiba early not knowing what to expect, as the new laws stated that no pangas with spearguns aboard would be allowed to anchor up in the park. But the boss was not there so we unloaded our food and bedding, cleaned up, cooked up some fresh wahoo and crashed by 8 PM without any problem.

    The second day was another awesome day of hunting wahoo but we were seeing no pargo, no bohala,  and no roosters. We did get to see a magnificent sail under water but he kept his distance.  Ken shot his biggest wahoo, but in the mouth area, and somehow it pulled off. We decided that we should not have the Riffe float fully inflated, because when the fish went down it put too much pressure on the line and the point was more likely to rip out. Also since we had the luxury of taking only close shots,  I think this was the only fish we shot and did not land.  I shot a nice fish on the second day and had a fantastic “rocket man” ride into the depths as I streamlined my body to reduce the drag as a human dive float. By the speed and duration of my pull downs I could sense this was a bigger wahoo. I was excited, fatigued from fighting the fish, and as I started up one time, the float line got wrapped around my leg.  I was so close to the edge when I felt entangled, that I knew I would not have the time to cut through the line. Fortunately I was able, in one motion, to get slack and slip out of the loop. Had I passed out,  Ken was watching and was already on his way down to me.  We sometimes forget that when you “hit the wall,”  there might be less that five seconds between living and dying.  We got the fish in, hung him on the scale suspended from the verticle weighing stick, and it pulled the spring down to read 65 pounds. Then the fish ripped off, and the stretched scale popped off the stick, flew up and over the side of the boat and hit the water.  I dove in with my mask on, no weights and no fins, and watched helplessly as the scale fell spinning out of sight into the deep water. That took care of weighing any more fish we would shoot, but with the big fish of the day, I still won the honor of eating the eyeball. Slippery, slimy, delicious and nutritious.

    Day three we discovered “ Wahoo City.”  After a two hour panga ride, seeing no good drift lines, we arrived at another high spot that I had dived before.  It had been totally cleaned out by the commercial pargo fishermen and the only fish there were oceanic triggerfish by the thousands. It seems they take over when all the gamefish have been netted or caught.  As we continued farther outside to escape the triggers, we made the serendipitous discovery of a new high spot and decided to check it out.  The bait was there, the water was clear, the conditions were perfect and there were wahoo everywhere——we had discovered Wahoo City. We could always see two or three fish, often 6 or 8, and twice I counted over a dozen around us. The fish were not spooky and it was utterly magnificent to line up on one fish after another and then let it go by. Our biggest fish stopped six feet away as we were exchanging the pistola. The shot was lined up but with four hands on the gun, we were still making our minds up about who was going to pull the trigger, when the fish moved away.  There were so many fish that we even got Jesus, the boat driver, in the water with a mask on while hanging on to the side of the boat. He was so captivated watching all the fish around us that he completely forgot about his fear of the deep ocean. Most of his buddies will not believe what he saw.  We decided to take a couple more fish to make it an even dozen for the trip and we both were then totally satisfied. After that we enjoyed seeing how close we could get to the fish, realizing we might never again be blessed with this phenomenon.  After two or three hours the current changed, and within ten minutes all the fish were gone. But—- we had been to “Wahoo City”— an experience we’ll never forget. We shot 12 wahoo in three days and could have shot 30 or 40.  Other divers I know went to the same place a few days after hearing our report and never saw a single wahoo. The secret——?

    Day four was rough and dirty and not good for diving but Ken got on the board with his first amberjack (or bohala), and it was the only one we saw in four days. We relaxed, quit early and got ready to make the long trip back by panga and car, the next day. On the way back we marveled at how everything had gone so perfectly and we both knew that we had been blessed with a rare, perhaps never to be repeated, visit to” Wahoo City.”

    Ken left town and a few days later I was brought back to reality by a two day dive trip to Hell.  What if this trip had been Ken’s Panama experience—-? How is this for the trip you DON’T want to take: 130 miles in two days in a panga, with constant wind, rough seas, huge dangerous swells, dirty warm water, a four hour rainstrorm, absolutely no fish, sleeping in the floor of the panga in the rain and discovering your dive buddy sleeping one foot away, snores really loudly. And there was a new on for me—bichos or small water crabs, about 1/8 inch in size that crawl into your ears while you are swimming and then go deep into your inner ear. My dive buddy Antonio told me he had three crawling around in his ear for days and he could feel when they moved but could not get them out or even see them. Then someone told him about beer in your ear for the bichos and that chased them out. This time I had some ear beer (alcohol and vinegar mix) so we were able to flush the crabs out of Antonio’s ears before we tried to sleep.  Doc’s Pro Plugs that I always use kept the bichos out of my ears completely so I never had the problem.

    As I tried to sleep in the bottom of the panga with the rain falling and Antonio sawing logs, I knew I needed to open my mind’s eye to the gifts and blessing that are always there. 1. The rain was warm and comfortable and not cold 2. My back had recovered and I had the health and well being to experience these adventures again. 3. I had no bichos in my ears thanks to Doc’s Pro Plugs. 4. I didn’t sink my panga when I ran down a swell and nosed into a wave that filled the panga half full of water. 5. I learned what I needed to do to my boat and how to check the weather so that the next trip would not be a dive trip to Hell. 6. I remembered with a smile the magic of the trip to Wahoo City and what can materialize when you least expect it.  So with gratitude and warm rain falling on my face I crashed out knowing that all was well, in perfect order, and better dive days were ahead.

Dix Roper
     June 2005
     dixroper@earthlink.net