Old cars, cigars and some fish: Cuba part 1

February 2015. Me and my girlfriend were finally travelling to Cuba. I’ve been trying to convince her for years that Cuba is the place to visit as long as the Castro brothers still have the power in their hands.

We had booked a conducted tour where the first week would be travelling around the country and visiting all kind of places of interest. The second week was dedicated only for relaxing and fishing in Varadero.

 

A real life picture from the streets of Havana.

After a few days traveling in Havana, Viñales and Santa Clara we arrived to the coastal city of Cienfuegos. And because we had a free evening I packed my fishing gear and headed to the shore. 

Cienfuegos. I was fishing just across the street.

Loyal to my style I started by finding out what might be hiding under the shore rocks. It didn’t take too long to catch my first Cuban fish. I’m pretty sure it’s a Frillfin goby but if you have other opinions feel free to tell me. After that it went dead for a long time until I caught my second fish. It was a small French grunt.  Not a superb fishing session but at least I caught two new species.

Frillfin goby. Ben C, I know you doubt about it...

French grunt (Haemulon flavolineatum).

Next morning I was on the shore well far before the sun. Again I was lirking between the rocks. I had some cautious bites but could not hook single fish. Then I tried a bit deeper behind the rocks and caught one small French grunt. I tried also with sabikis, spinners and a spoon but not had a single bite with these.

With this taxi we made the funniest taxi ride ever.

Next day our caravan moved to the city of Trinidad. Our hotel was situated on the peninsula of Playa Ancón. Again we had free afternoon and because we were living by the sea I was at the shore in no time. Couple of hundred meters from our hotel was a small bridge with the fast flowing tide going under it. When I arrived there I saw several fish species right away, damsels, wrasses, parrotfishes, barracudas, puffers etc.

Here it is. A species fishing mecca of Playa Ancón.

And now you think I was catching all the time? Noup. All I caught was two Dusky damsel and one Doctorfish with my whip rod. There was couple of small barracudas hanging around but they just moved away every time I was offering poppers or spoons for them.

Dusky damsel. These brown damsels are always so easy to identify. Not.

Doctorfish (Acanthurus chirurgus). Caught with a piece of damselfish.

It was getting dusk already when I saw some predators chasing baitfish just ten meters from me. I quickly change a small Vibrax spinner on the line and casted it in the middle of the boil. I blanked on first cast but on the second I had a hit and soon was holding a small jack on my hands. On the same moment the wind calmed down totally and in a split second there was literally hundreds of mosquitos attacking my bald legs and arms. That’s the reason the picture of the Bar jack is that hazy. I just stuffed all my gear to my backpack and run back to the hotel. I think I got at least hundred mosquito and sand fly bites on me that night…

Bar jack. Normally the blue bar on the back is much more apparent.

With a mosquito repellent all over me and a head torch on my forehead I was ready for a quick early morning attack. I wanted to know if there was some night active species living between the shore rocks. It was much harder that I though it would be. I lost few critters before I finally caught the one and only fish of the session. Like all the three species last night this one was luckily a new species for me.

Gulf toadfish (Opsanus beta). This one is a juvenile.

On the first week at Cuba I managed to catch six new species. Compared to the time I spent fishing I’m pretty satisfied with the results.

There's a real dream species to catch. Jicotea aka. Cuban gar. Saddly I didn't have chance to fish them.

You did not see this one coming. This was my first and probably last time tasting a real hand made Cuban cigar.