The Region
Hannibal Bank
The most famous fishing landmark in the Gulf of Chiriquí. Its aggregations of black marlin and yellowfin tuna have drawn offshore anglers for decades.
Hannibal Bank is a large seamount at the southern edge of the Gulf of Chiriquí, about 38 miles from the Isla Parida lodge. It was named in 1914 for the USS Hannibal, the U.S. Navy survey ship that charted it while running depth surveys ahead of the opening of the Panama Canal.
The bank is roughly five miles wide and two miles deep. The ocean floor climbs from several thousand feet on the southern side to just over 200 feet — a mesa-shaped mountain whose peaks rise to within about 120 feet of the surface. That high spot is what makes it fish.
Fed by the upwelling, nutrient-rich waters of the Humboldt Current, the bank sets a chain of life in motion: phytoplankton blooms hold bait, and bait draws marlin, sailfish, yellowfin tuna, dorado and wahoo. It is common to come across huge schools of boiling tuna in "frenzies," or to see black marlin exploding on the surface as they feed.
A typical day
A morning run, then live bait over the high spot.
Mornings begin with the run from Isla Parida aboard our 33' World Cats. En route the crew watches for floating logs, feeding porpoises, diving birds and tuna, casting live bait, poppers or jigs whenever the chance presents itself.
At the bank we catch black skipjacks — "bonitas" — and keep them alive in the tuna tubes. We bridle them to large circle hooks and slow-troll them around bait congregations and likely marlin, sailfish, tuna, dorado and wahoo zones, watching the surface for feeding fish and the sounder for targets below.
On the bank
Hannibal Bank in the spread
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