The beach at Playa Larga

I picked up Osmany in the coastal town of Playa Larga. There is a tourist hotel in town called the Villa Horizontes Playa Larga (059-7129). I brought my 9-weight rod along and wanted bonefish, but Osmany said no,"Robalo y sabalo." Snook and tarpon.

Osmany also guides for bonefish on the Laguna de las Salinas, a series of flats about 30 minutes south of Playa Larga. He said it was common for an angler to catch 40 bonefish in a day, but that peak fishing starts in June and runs through September. In the spring, tarpon are the ticket.

There are no tackle shops in Cuba, so you'll have to bring your own gear. For bonefish, bring an 8-weight fly rod with floating line, 12-pound tippet, and several shrimp and crab flies. Tarpon and snook hunters can stick with 9-weight outfits—because the tarpon don't exceed 30 pounds—but should use at least a 20-pound shock tippet. Bring along both floating and intermediate sinking lines in case the fish stay deep. Flies? Anything with chartreuse or yellow.

Osmany spoke enough English to direct us to the house of his friend Senor, a first-rate angler who'd be guiding a second angler's skiff. Senor, a tall and puffy mustachioed man, spoke no English whatsoever. He just nodded at us whenever we talked.

We drove another 45 minutes into the giant, mostly unpopulated national park and pulled off the road onto a rambling dirt trail. We abused the Hyundai for another half hour before stopping at a one-room house on a small canal. A woman came out and offered us little cups of Cuban coffee. Osmany pulled two 12-foot skiffs from the reeds. Senor loaded his with a bottle of rum and several cans of Cristal beer.

We jumped in and headed down the narrow canal, lush with aquatic vegetation. The Zapata is known worldwide by birders as a premier place to spy exotic species. We saw, literally, thousands of neon-colored and intricately plumed birds, scared from their roosts by the buzz of our outboards. Osmany is an ornithologist, and as we cruised to the Rio Hatiguanico, he casually identified every bird we saw.

The Rio Hatiguanico is a tidal river that empties into the Gulf of Batabano and, as almost no one fishes it, is teeming with saltwater game fish—snook, tarpon, jack crevalles, mangrove snappers. In the transparent water, we could see all of them, on the hunt and gullible, having never before seen a fly and mistaken it for a bait fish.

As soon as we reached the fishing grounds, the rains came. The torrent started quickly and without subtlety. Osmany and Senor fired up the engines and tried to outrun it. They rammed the boats into a mangrove canopy, giving us a leaky but generally effective cover. Senor cut a Cristal can in half and filled it with rum. He passed the bottle over to Osmany, who handed it to me, saying, "In Cuba we drink rum for breakfast, rum for lunch, rum for dinner." I obliged.

Soon the rain stopped and we were onto the best tarpon fishing of our lives, hundreds of little silver missiles—none bigger than 30 pounds—there for the taking. Every cast brought a chase, if not a hook up and a spectacular aerial display. Then, just as suddenly, it was over. The tarpon had moved on.

We switched over to the snook, pugnacious fighters in their own right that waited among the mangrove roots to ambush passing bait fish. I hooked into one using a clouser minnow; it bent my rod under the boat in an all-out street fight. The water being free of tannins, the snook had a silvery sheen.

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Caribbean Adventures Cuba - Immerse yourself in Cuba's colorful past and explore its natural beauty. Dominican Republic - This popular destination boasts scrumptious beaches, breathtaking cliffs, and friendly hospitality. British Virgin Islands - You can sail, swim, or just plain relax on these welcoming, laid-back islands.

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