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Inshore Species

Cubera snapper

Maulers of the reef. They run like cut snakes when hooked — and it takes brute force to keep them out of the rocks.

The cubera snapper is the other headliner of the inshore fishing in the Gulf of Chiriquí. They are maulers of the reef.

Cubera are powerful fighters. They run like cut snakes when hooked — if you're on the rod, you'll have to take care, and exert brute force, to keep them from getting back into the rocks.

We catch many of our cubera on bonito. Drifting a chunk of fresh dead bonito over a high spot is like tossing in snapper candy. We catch others trolling live bonito. And if you're lucky enough to tangle with one of these brutes on a popper, you're in for a spectacle — when a big snapper eats a topwater, it looks like the explosion of a hand grenade.

We catch big snapper and tangle with lots of them. Many of our guests come down to try for them, and with good reason. We have a hell of a cubera fishery — and we release them.

In the spread

Cubera at the lodge

A big Panama cubera snapper boatside
An angler with a cubera snapper
A cubera snapper from the Gulf of Chiriquí

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