I get a lot of sporting invitations, many from former fishing clients, to visit exotic areas and fly fish for...trout. It even happened on a 30-day tour of South Africa years back. Everyone wanted to take me trout fishing in the Drakensberg Mountains. Sounds cool.
But I've lived in Montana's Golden Triangle for several decades and I won't travel far to fish for trout. That, however, doesn't mean I won't travel to fish.
So in early January 2019 when I was invited to join a group fishing from a mother ship off Cuba in an area similar to the Florida Keys, I dug for my passport, credit card and saltwater gear.
Fast forward to late January and I'm on a modern, comfortable made-in-China bus with 20 anglers from the Chesapeake Bay area. We're rumbling (the dirt-road kind) through the night, bound for a tiny port town. It's been a long trail and my eyes feel like dry ball bearings. We arrive in due time and I board the mother ship in a daze, fall asleep to the sound of her engines and wake up the next morning in paradise, 50 miles offshore.
Ten Dolphin flats skiffs garland the stern, awaiting us -- two per boat. Still a bit dazed, I step aboard my skiff, empty-handed but for my lunch. My three rods are aboard and ready for action. Holy shit! And off we go, rocketing through Mangrovia, my name for the kingdom of coastal forests that produce the bonefish, tarpon, permit and other shallow-water game fish prized by long-rodders. (Yes, I AM developing a Mangrovia flag.)
Twenty minutes later, the boat stopped, the guide gets birdy, climbs the poling platform and whispers, "Bonefish, leben o'clock fitty meters...um, fitty feet." My partner, a flats veteran who has honors, is already on deck and on the school. The vaunted "ghost of the flats" have met their match as he expertly drops the fly ahead of the school. My partner strip-strikes twice while never raising his rod tip until the bonefish feels the steel and turns into an RPG.
Fish to hand, my partner lights a cigar. I'm up.
A eye blink later it's 4 p.m. when our 90-foot mother ship comes into view. We tie up and are greeted by the beaming cruise director. She hands each of us a fresh mojito and an ice-cold facecloth. Behind us, our rods are being rinsed and racked for the next day's fishing.
Several hours later -- after an extended happy hour -- 20 of us tuck into a buffet-style dinner that leaves nothing to be desired. Baked Alaska is tonight's dessert. Afterwards, several anglers move to the sun(down) deck and others remain into the night over a bottle or two of 7-year-old Havana Club rum. The Cuban musical group Buena Vista Social Club sets the mood over the ship's stereo system.
Dawn brings a chef's breakfast -- no mere cooks on this trip -- and high winds that made for challenging but fun fishing for the next several of our six days.
As they say, however, a picture's worth a thousand words:
