By Tim Gaynor
Posted Tuesday, November 9, 2004
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Sure-footed deckhand Flaviano Vaquiaza slipped the baitfish over the side into the cobalt waters and fastened the tackle tight to the boat with a thick shank of rope.
"An average Pacific sailfish weighs around 80 pounds, and a black marlin can be five times that," warned the weather-beaten deckhand with a wry smile. "And when they hit, they hit hard."
 Set in a swathe of primary rain forest, some 150 miles east of Panama City in remote Darien province, the Tropic Star Lodge is little known to tourists but has won fame on an elite game-fishing circuit.
Founded by Texas oil baron Ray Smith in 1961, the discreet jungle resort has broken more than 170 world rod-and-line records and attracted a host of A-list celebrities, from John Wayne to dancer Rudolph Nureyev.
Making tracks from Europe, the United States and Australia to the remote lodge, 100 miles from the nearest highway, visitors are drawn by the promise of a duel with a marlin, said proprietor Mike Andrews.
"You're looking at an animal that is amazing in terms of its strength and size. And you're doing battle with it on apiece of thread," the CEO of the family business said.
An unlikely venue
“ We've changed Panama's fishing ethics.… Visitors don't go home with stuffed marlin anymore. ”
— Tropic Star Lodge proprietor Mike Andrews Pushed up toward the Colombian frontier region, in a wild no-man's-land of unbroken jungle called the Darien Gap, the lodge is an unlikely venue for a high-end game-fishing resort. But through a quirk of underwater topography and converging ocean currents, a cool stream of nutrient-rich water rises up from the deep seabed, setting into play a unique food chain.
"The baitfish come for the plankton and then the game fish follow," Andrews said, adding that the rich aquariumlike conditions extend for a 20-mile radius around the resort's jungle-fringed Pina Bay.
"Our main target species are the blue, black and striped marlin and Pacific sailfish, and we've made quite a name for ourselves," he said. "They are the epitome of game fish."
Clambering into one of the resort's fleet of a dozen 31-foot Bertram cruisers, retired Colorado businessman Chuck McAllister roared out to the calm coastal waters beneath the lush Cordillera de Jurado mountain range.
Trailing baited lines over the side, the 72-year old reeled in the first of 26 sailfish. During the week's vacation a 600-pound black marlin followed.
"Day in and day out, this place produces," said McAllister, who has fished waters from Alaska to Florida. "I can catch anything I want, from marlin to tuna and roosterfish."
“ I'm a jungle man and I love to fish. I just fell in love with the place. ”
— Former lodge owner Conway Kittredge Rancher's jungle love affair
Florida-based rancher Conway Kittredge, whose daughter and son-in-law now run the business, bought the lodge in 1976 for $250,000, thinking he had secured just the fishing launches. But after a surprise call from the resort's booking agent, the former World War II bomber pilot realized he had bought a niche business in a 14,500-acre jungle spread.
"I'm a jungle man and I love to fish. I just fell in love with the place," Kittredge, 80, said a cigar on the resort's terrace. "The fishing grew so quickly."
With his nearest neighbors an Embara-Wounaan Indian village on the lodge's land, the soft-spoken Kittredge set about overhauling the facilities to provide comfort to well-heeled visitors. At first he flew back and forth from the lodge in a four-seater Lake Amphibian seaplane. Then he laid a concrete airstrip in nearby Pinas village, installed a water-purification system and renovated the on-site power plant.
With all-inclusive packages starting at $2,580 a week, the sun-blasted lodge is often booked through the November-to-April high season and boasts 85 percent repeat business.
Hell-raising hunter and author Ernest Hemingway, whose sport-fishing novella "The Old Man and the Sea" couched marlin fishing as an epic fight to the death, brought fame to the sport in the 1940s and 1950s.
Ecological undertones
But in the intervening years, as game animals became endangered species, the Tropic Star Lodge has played a prominent role in shedding the sport's bloodthirsty image.
"We've changed Panama's fishing ethics. They used to kill everything that they caught but now around 99.9 percent of all fish are released," Andrews said. "Visitors don't go home with stuffed marlin anymore."
The lodge, which keeps scrupulous catch records, returned some 314 black, blue and striped marlin in the 2000 season, along with 2,444 Pacific sailfish.
The resort also adopted a "fish friendly" circular hook, which prevents gut-hooking often blamed on conventional "J" hooks. The barbs, curving obliquely inward, are made of soft steel that rusts out with time and are standard issue on its boats.
"Last year I asked them to file off the barb," said lifetime sport veteran Kittredge, who has taken tackle refinement one step further. "I just like to see the sailfish jump as it throws the hook."
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