Last week of April on the North Shore Cayo Romano Cuba
by Richard French, 07 June 2011

The last week of April I headed up to the North Shore of Cubas vast coastline to start the first of 3 back to back weeks with guests at Cayo Romano. It was a small group of only 5 guests but we were all eager to get out onto the virgin flats and see what this newest of Cubas flats fisheries had in store for us. I had not been to Romano since last July where I spent 4 days there and I was chomping at the bit to see what a full week of fishing would be like. 

We had guests from Canada, England and the US and there was lots of good camaraderie within the group. A couple of the guys stayed up very late each night enjoying the bar and cigars and I marveled at how they could be ready to go for breakfast at 6 am each morning. For such a remote and unusual location the bar at the lodge is surprisingly well stocked and is open 24 hours. 

The bonefishing for the week was absolutely stellar and we had one boat land over a 100 fish in 5 days. My first day on the flats I hooked into a Cubera Snapper that weighed about 45 pounds. I fought the fish for about an hour before he found a hole on the bottom of the flat and we could not get him out. Had to break the line. I landed about 15 bones the first day, with 4 or 5 coming close to 7 pounds. I also booked into a beast of a cuda that broke me off right at the boat after a good 15 minute fight. The wire leader just broke! What can you do? I was using a Tailer Beware size 4 and I had very few refusals during the week with this fly.

Eric Rogers was down from Toronto for his 50th birthday with his father Joseph. Eric was the only spin fisherman for the the week and he certainly landed his share of fish, especially the large barracudas that could not refuse his noisy surface plugs. There were a lot of big Cudas around for the week and they were very eager to take a fly. I was successful with cudas using a red and white deceiver size 3/0. Surprisingly we did not see many permit or tarpon during the course of this week. It just goes to show you how the ocean is a very fickle mistress. 

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