Panama is what Costa Rica was twenty years ago. It is very sparcely populated with very little fishing pressure. Unlike Costa Rica, where you can stay in a hotel and charter a boat for a days fishing, the only decent fishing opportunities are in remote locations at all inclusive lodges that provide the accomodations, meals and fishing. At most of them there is very little else to do but fish. No evening excursions to a nearby casino.

There are two areas where the fishing is concentrated, to the east end of the country near the Columbian border and in the western sixty miles or so of the country. TROPIC STAR LODGE, which usually books up for the December through March season a year or more in advance,  is the only choice in the east, but there are several choices in the west, with a new one popping up every year or so.Two of those fishing operations are "live-aboard" type trips, where you live on a mothership anchored in the vicinity of Coiba Island and fish on the smaller sportfishermen. Of these, Pesca Panama is the most popular, also booking up a year in advance.

Tropic Star only offers full week packages from January through March, working on a Saturday to Saturday schedule. The rest of the year they offer three and four day trips on fixed schedules. The live-aboard operations onlybook full week packages.

Then there are the half dozen or so small land based lodges, typically with up to four boats available. Most of them will book as many days as you like, with no fixed schedule.

There are urrently six operations near Coiba Island. Both PESCA PANAMA and the CORAL STAR, which are the liveaboard outfits, operate the same as Tropic Star with fixed arrival and departure days. The other lodges are all land based and are more flexible, both with the number of days you can book as well as th whch days you want to fish.