After another gorgeous sunrise, it was time to fish again!

We were back to inshore fishing with our panga guide.  Much to our delight, we found his boat stocked up with over 100 live shrimp for us to use as bait.  There was another boat trolling for roosters so we skipped straight to bottom fishing.

Despite having live shrimp, our bad luck streak with the larger fish continued.  We continued on and ran into a big schools of spotted rose snappers. After we cleaned out most of the snappers, we started to get a mix.

Ken hooked up a strong running fish that surfaced to be his first Almaco jack.  It was a gorgeous fish and I sure was jealous.

I nabbed a colourful Pacific graysby and a brassy grunt.

Pacific graysby

Brassy grunt

Midway through the day, I was lucky enough to hook my own Almaco jack!

Longfin yellowtail (Almaco jack)

Meanwhile, Jeff had caught another barred soreno (a unique fish both him and George caught the other day).  Then both Ken and George caught orange-sided triggerfish.  I was always last with these triggers.  I hooked a strong fish that broke me off due to a knot failure. So long orange-sided trigger (possibly!).

I also lost a yellow (amarillo) snapper due to a dull hook.  I wasn’t done with the losses yet though…

I spotted a few dinner-plate sized fish swimming under the boat. They were pacific spadefish and quite the prize!  I tied on a light leader of 4lbs and a size 14 hook and suspended my bait halfway down.  I soon had a fish on that I didn’t feel bite.  A few spirited runs later, the spadefish was on the surface. We tried bringing it into the boat, but my 4lb leader gave way.  Another time mister spadefish, another time.

Ken and I tried for spadefish again, but by this time a school of green jacks and grunts had moved in.

As we passed back into the marina, our guide informed us there was a new species of leatherjacket to be caught on the way back in.  We trolled some tiny hooks behind the boat and Ken and George both caught a shortjaw leatherjacket.

As we refueled, I noticed there was no shortage of sergeant majors swarming under the gas pump dock.  Our guide suggested I stealthily catch one before security told me otherwise.  Success!

Panamic sergeant major

Back at the marina I got square with a yellow (amarillo) snapper.

Yellow snapper

I tried a bit for the small goby-like fish Ken had previously caught, but all I did was scare them.

After missing our chances at so many big fish the past few days, we were really scratching our heads as to what was going wrong.  It seemed our hooks were completely missing.  We’d have a tad bit more luck tomorrow.