Cuba is a fabulous place. As a holiday destination, its probably inevitable that it will become the jewel of the Caribbean. Its coastal areas look like paradise, its people are brilliant, and Havana just isn't to be missed. Size wise, its much the same Britain, positioned between the Florida Keys and the Caribbean Sea, putting it slap bang in amongst one of the best fishing areas in the world. This is the place famed big game angler Ernest Hemmingway used as his main fishing base. But things have moved on a lick since the 1950's when Hemmingway was there. They've had a revolution and Cuba remains the last surviving totally communist remnant of what is fast becoming a bygone era. Not that this should have any sort of impact on the fishing potential. But in some ways, it does.

Poverty is not a major social issue in Cuba, but the people are undoubtedly poor and are supported and controlled by the state in virtually every aspect of their lives. So when they find ways of easing their struggle, such as catching fish to eat, understandably they take them, which explains why around some parts of the coast the bigger fish have all but gone. But this is not the case everywhere. Around 10 percent of Cuba has official national park designation where that sort of thing just is not tolerated. All the main locations offered as angling packages lie within these protected areas. From a rod and line point of view, three areas in particular spring to mind. The one I stayed at includes the two all inclusive holiday resorts of Cayo Coco and Cayo Guillermo.

Cayo Coco and Cayo Guillermo are the two main inhabited islands in a chain of over 2500 cays and exposed rocks off the countries north coast. The island group and national park goes under the name of Jardines Del Rey, which translates as Gardens of the King, named in honour of the king of Spain back in the sixteenth century. A recently constructed 17 mile long causeway connecting Cayo Coco to the mainland has a permanent police check point preventing access by local Cubans. Only buses carrying either holiday makers or workers going on shift at the hotels are allowed through. And the whole area positively teems with fish. The shore fishing, once you get it sussed, is excellent, though that's not a story for BFM. The boat fishing is also potentially very good. But it has to be said that from an organizational point of view, there is still some way to go.

To some extent, this particular problem stems from the way communism works. Everyone involved in every aspect of tourist support, including boat fishing, is employed by the government, who also own all the infrastructure right down to the fishing tackle provided. Well supposedly at least, though to a small extent that isn't strictly true. Quite a bit of the terminal tackle, particularly lures like Rapala's, has been donated by previous clients, mainly Canadians who bring in lots of American tackle which the Cubans would struggle to get hold of due to the strict and very damaging US trade embargo. Its hard to comprehend a country the size of Britain having only one tackle shop located at Havana, but I'm told that's the way it is. Not that the man on the street could afford to buy fishing tackle anyway, even if it was more widely available.

Without pointing the finger at anyone in particular, let me say that myself and a couple of others were offered 'black market' trips to fish for snappers, jacks and the like in the mangroves channels. Yet despite having agreed to pay the best part of a typical Cuban years wage for a single days fishing (£100), on every occasion we were let down leading me to think that perhaps the most reliable thing about some of these people is their un-reliability, so be warned. Even getting afloat on the government owned fishing boats turned out to be more of an ordeal than perhaps it needed to be. I had some inside information before I went, and still I struggled. In part this was due to the boat I was looking for being moved from Cayo Guillermo marina where I was told to go, down to Cayo Coco marina, which I eventually found at the bottom of an unmade track into the mangroves.

But even when I found it, and Magin Jzquierdo who skippers the boat Marlin XII, I thought I might still finish the visit off without ever getting afloat. As usual, wind was the problem. But I began to wonder sometimes if trips were being canceled too hastily due to the fact that unlike here in the UK, all concerned get their wages whether they sail or they don't. Other angling centres such as Zapata and Jardines de la Reina (Gardens of the Queen), both noted for their bonefish, don't suffer the same problems. Granted, both have more sheltered waters to go at. But being operated by organizers outside of Cuba also helps. On the down side however, these venues tend mainly to fish full angling packages, which if you are going over with the family on holiday and just want a few days fishing would be difficult to get into or to find a holiday package near.

On a more positive note, Magin and his crewman Barbaro certainly lived up to their star billing when eventually we did get afloat. The morning of the trip (after three failed starts) dawned without a cloud in the sky and barely a palm leaf moving anywhere. A taxi was sent to pick us up at the hotel, and the marina when we arrived there looked every bit the part. Quality boats tied up to small floating pontoons set amongst the reef and mangroves with turquoise water over the shallow coral suddenly giving way to blue as the reef edge plunged away into the depths. With the main autumn sailfish season over, and the early winter wahoo run about to come to an end, we were given the choice of either working the edge of the reef for big snappers, barracuda and groupers, or trying out deep with the option of moving in closer if nothing much was happening offshore. We chose to go with option two.

As Magin navigated a route through the coral passing a boat abandoned some months earlier after running aground away from the main channel, Barbaro set about rigging up half a dozen trolling outfits. Despite Cuba's dislike of all things American, the outfits all came from Penn. The boat on the other hand, though typically American in performance and layout with loads of comfortable cabin space, outriggers, and roof top controls, was a 38 foot Jucaro DC9 brought over from Italy. Long thin belly cuts of barracuda and dorado lashed to the eyes of large single hooks fished behind a variety of weighted and un-weighted skirted jig heads with wire leaders formed the main stay of the terminal gear, a couple of which were substituted occasionally by large deep diving rapala's when things went a little on the quite side.

First fish of the day turned out to be a lively dorado to the right hand outrigger. As it was Dawns first go at offshore trolling, she was first in the chair. Another dorado of similar size soon followed. These truly are spectacular fish in every sense of the word. I then took a hit from a wahoo, which had I known what it was going to be, I would have left for Dawn. But thats the way it deep water trolling goes goes. You just don't know what's coming along next. But half expecting another wahoo when the next big hit came along, Dawn again took the rod and found herself into a decent sized barracuda that had strayed away from the reef by quite a few miles. Shortly afterwards, we picked up a couple more. Then in stark contrast to what had been quite a lively opening couple of hours, everything suddenly switched off, and and for the next hour or so we didn't see a touch. By this time we had reached the half day point. Time for lunch, a bit of re-thinking, and a move if we were going to make one.

At lunch time you get two choices. You can either fish on as we decided to do. Or Magin will take the boat to some sheltered spot on the reef, which is a good option I suppose if its lumpy, and put the anchor down while Barbaro prepares the food. Had we realized anchoring was an option before setting out, I would have packed some light bait fishing gear and fished for snappers while the food was being cooked. Instead, we decided to troll our way back towards the reef edge while eating our lunch, then try for some bigger snappers, which can get well into double figures, and groupers which regularly go up to around 30 pounds. And what a lunch it turned out to be. Fried bread crumbed dorado which is my favorite eating fish of all time, rice with a light spicy sauce, mixed vegetables, and a lobster apiece.

Trolling the edge of the reef produced a lot of fish. But not the snappers or grouper we were hoping for, though Dawn did get one grouper that wasn't much bigger than the rapala it took. This was barracuda city, and they were in hungry mood. We took hit and after hit on virtually anything we put in front of them. Unfortunately, what they had in numbers they lacked in size. And that pretty much was it, until late in the afternoon when Magin spotted a couple of frigate birds repeatedly circling one particular patch of blue water. The suspicion was that predatory fish were driving the smaller bait fish up to the surface where the birds were waiting to pick them off. Magin suggested we might like to have a quick run off to see what might be going on.

We were in the final hour or so of the trip which meant that with the run out, followed by the long run back, we wouldn't get much of a shot. On the other hand, you only need so many small barracudas before you've had enough. So, not knowing what to expect, we decided it was worth the time investment to run out and take a look. Margin positioned the boat right under the birds. An air of optimism and expectation suddenly set in which within minutes looked like being rewarded, as suddenly to our right a coupled of really big dorado came leaping at high speed across the surface in the direction of the baits. Almost immediately the outrigger release clip was snatched open by a take and I grabbed the rod. This felt much better than anything that had gone before. But within seconds, the rod tip shot back and the fish was gone.

As Barbaro set about bringing the bait in for a change, the other outrigger clip snapped open, and this time the fish was securely hooked. What followed was a brilliant display of angry aerobatics as quite a sizable slab of yellow, green and blue dorado did its level best to go in any direction other than that of the boat. Eventually, it quietened down a little, then came in reasonably passively across the surface looking absolutely fabulous as its yellow flanks and blue edged pectoral fins caught the sun. Then in classic dorado style, the moment it came aboard the boat it went absolutely berserk splattering blood and water everywhere. An impossible fish to pose for the camera while still alive, and not nearly so impressive when dead, I was disappointed not to get the true colours of the thing on film. Disappointed also by its size, as we had estimated the fish we saw earlier as being much bigger when they had first come porpoising across the surface towards the lures. Perhaps there had been some smaller fish mixed amongst them and this was one of them. Who knows. But at around 25 pounds, it still turned out to be the best fish of the day.

Its sad really that there are not other boat trips available, particularly from Cayo Guillermo marina which has lots of mangrove channels close by that are positively stuffed with fish. I've already said that the shore fishing, as good as it was, is not for BFM. But what I will say is that from the bridge just a few yards from the marina, we took red snappers to 15 pounds, along with cubera snappers, lots of jacks, stingrays and needle fish. I also did a bit of snorkeling (holding on to a rope as I can't swim) and was surrounded by fish up to maybe 2 to 3 pounds. I'm told there is a sunken barge and lots of other sheltered any weather opportunities full of fish which a small boat could easily exploit, but little chance of getting afloat. There must also be some excellent bonefish potential, though again, no boat available at Cayo Guillermo, though there might be one at Cayo Coco. If there isn't, then there should be, because not everyone wants to go trolling offshore, and it seems such a waste to completely ignore a potential, which at the right price, most visiting UK boat anglers would fall over themselves to try