Excerpts from a feature article in the May 2, 1999 issue of the Ottawa Citizen Weekly
(In Mark Anderson’s group were John Huff , Mike Darch and Randy Taylor)
We’re here (Bay of Pigs) because this is maybe the best place in the world to catch what may be the world’s greatest fighting fish – the bonefish.
Because bonefish
are widely regarded as the ultimate port for saltwater
aficionados, the best habitat has long been staked out
and angled into submission. For obvious reasons, however,
few people know of Cuba’s Zapata Archipelago or the
bounty of La Salina flats.
I’m two bones shy of the double-digit goal for the day when we round a corner and enter a long, thin bay. “Bonefeesh !” I look and the bay is full of them, at least four separate schools of a dozen fish each, feeding along the banks.
My first cast lands 10 feet short. The bones take no notice. The second lands five feet shy, and the tails vanish. With my left hand I begin slowly stripping line back in, pulling the fly through the water. When I feel resistance, I give a sharp jerk on the line. Then I lift the rod up over my head. For a second or two, nothing. Then the coils of slack begin to whip out of the water like hissing snakes. When the last loop disappears the rod bends sharply down and the reel begins to whine In a matter of seconds, the running bonefish cleans 30 yards of fly line off the reel, and then goes to work on 250 yards of backing.
We’re drinking cans of Crystal and smoking our noon-hour cigars when Alberto, who has eyes like a hawk, even without polarized shades, spots yet another pod of feeding bonefish moving our way. I slip into the water, creep within casting range and drop a perfect cast three feet from the nearest fish. “Grande,” says Alberto, as the bonefish begins its run. “Grande, Grande.” And for the next 20 minutes, cigar hanging from my mouth, I battle what proves to be the biggest fish I would land , a fat six-pounder.
Mike managed to land 17 fish, lose another several and still be at the dock by five. Randy wouldn’t say how many he boated. His guide, Alfonse, spilled the beans; an eye-popping 51, bringing him within spitting distance of the flats all-time record of 64, notched by a single-minded Italian earlier in the year.
John (Huff) looks absolutely beat, dazed even. But he’s smiling.
“How many?” says Randy.
“Bonefish heaven,” John says. “I’ve been to bonefish heaven.”
“How many?”
“Machito says 39. Oh, and I got a snook for dinner.”
By the time we arrive back in Jaguey Grande it’s 7pm. Zuleida, the middle-aged proprietress of Casa de Zuleida, goes to work in the kitchen, and by 8:30 we’re eating a dinner of fried snook and rice with beans. The snook, another denizen of the flats and a sought-after game fish in its own right, is unbelievably delicious.
Later we learn that Zuleida has a reputation not only as one of the best cooks in Jaquey Grande, but through out the country.
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT FISHING IN THE BAY OF PIGS/ LA SALINA PRISTINE SALTWATER SANCTUARY,
email: JONATHAN WATTS
OR JACK BRAMM
Tel: (905) 678-0426 Fax: (905) 678-1421
Toll free: 1-800-818-8840