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Day 2 - August 29th, 2004
| Seeing that the skies were blue once again
this morning, I wanted to get on the water as soon as possible. We
took a cab to the Sol Hotel, about 1.5 miles North, in pursuit of tarpon
reported to be in the dingy channel adjacent to the hotel (by Mark).
Literally moments after stepping out of the cab we saw the first tarpon
roll. The water was very dingy with a copper hue. I tried
casting a 3/0 purple bunny type fly to fish surfacing nearby.
Despite my best efforts, with various flies, I was only able to roll 1
fish. I did however come within 4 feet of a 4 foot tarpon while
wading the channel. I spooked the tarpon just about as much as the
tarpon spooked me when it thrashed away revealing it's size and location
- something I'll never forget. |
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After my futile attempts at the tarpon channel, we headed to the beach to
fish a rocky point where Mark caught some bones a few months ago. The
point was smaller than I imagined and dropped off quite quickly, unlike a
flat. I did manage to land a pretty nice garfish however on a green
crazy Charlie. What crazy looking fish these things are! They
remind me of our garpike but on steroids. They swim much faster than
any other fish I've ever seen and chomp at your fingers relentlessly when
you try to unhook them.
High winds and an approaching thunderstorm cut out stay short at the Sol
and we were soon on our way back to our resort down the beach.
After lunch and more importantly after the storm cleared up, we returned
to the bridge where we caught barracudas all day long yesterday. The
'cudas were ever present, maybe even a few bigger than the previous day
but high winds made casting a nightmare. I only managed to hook one
fish which I lost during landing while Karin hooked three, a 'cuda, a
jack, and a garfish, all of which either broke off or got off.
Edilio (Eddy), the local who gave me a fly
and some wire yesterday managed to make it today and this time he
brought his fly rod (Scott, made in the USA???). Edilio managed to
land 4 barracudas in no time at all, despite the high winds, showing us
a thing or two about presentation and casting techniques in the process.
We talked for a bit about other fishing opportunities in Cuba and shared
contact information. He is very adamant that Cuba has some of the
best bone fishing opportunities in the world, however the locations he
mentioned were over 4 hours away. Maybe next year. Very,
very nice guy.
The weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow, maybe we'll return to the
Sol and try our hand at those tarpon and bones once again? |
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Written By: Nick Pujic, © September 2004
Photographs By: Nick Pujic © 2004 & Karin Zandbergen © 2004 |
