A fishing lodge in Panama has submitted yet another huge saltwater fish for world-record consideration. In an Instagram post Monday, Los Buzos Resort said the “beast of a Cubera snapper” had already been sent to the International Game Fish Association as a pending length record.
Los Buzos said angler Toni Peiro landed the big snapper during his last day fishing with the lodge. Piero’s Pacific Cubera snapper taped out at 126 centimeters, or 49.6 inches, which is 6 centimeters longer than the standing IGFA length record. Under IGFA rules, a new length record has to be at least one centimeter longer than the current record to replace it.
The record-keeping organization also requires all potential length records to be released alive. This differs from traditional all-tackle records, which have to be weighed on a certified scale and are often killed in the process. (The IGFA notes on its website that it doesn’t require these fish to be killed, and that some anglers are able to release their fish after recording the official weight on a certified scale.)
Los Buzos did not respond immediately to a request for comment, so the details around Peiro’s catch are slim. But as the lodge pointed out in its post, plenty of other IGFA records have been caught by lodge guests before.
“Always adding to the stack!” the lodge wrote in a separate Instagram video, showing some of the other world-record certificates it has received from the IGFA. This includes multiple records for roosterfish and marlin, as well as several records for different snappers and other lesser-known species, like leather bass. There are at least nine world records in the IGFA book with “Los Buzos” listed as the location, but it’s likely that many of the other records caught in Pinas Bay and other nearby waters were caught by Los Buzos guests as well. The lodge itself claims to be home to more than 30 current world records.
Located in the small coastal village of Cambutal, Los Buzos has become a top destination for big-game kayak fishing, and this unique program is what really put the lodge on the map. It’s situated on the Azuero Peninsula in the center of what the lodge calls “Marlin Alley.” Because of its proximity to these rich offshore waters and other nearby reefs, the lodge uses large “mothership” pangas to transport anglers and their kayaks to hot spots along the coast. From there, fishermen can pedal, troll, and jig for some of the hardest-fighting fish in the salt.
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Los Buzos also offers a more traditional bottom-fishing program using larger boats. It’s unclear if Peiro caught his pending world-record snapper this way or from a kayak, but in the photo shared by Los Buzos, he appears to be sitting on the gunnel of a larger boat.
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