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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Frillfin goby. Ben C, I know you doubt about it... |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Dusky damsel. These brown damsels are always so easy to identify. Not. |
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| 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…
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| There's a real dream species to catch. Jicotea aka. Cuban gar. Saddly I didn't have chance to fish them. |
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| You did not see this one coming. This was my first and probably last time tasting a real hand made Cuban cigar. |
