Editorial-Opinion September 2015

I want to tell you about my largest bass ever; my personal best. I caught it in Cuba. I have never shared this story in print. I tell you this story now to share my take to the changes coming in relations between Cuba and the United States. I disapprove of what our current government is planning to do.

In the early 1980s, I was working for a magazine that (1) needed good bass photography, and (2) was positioned to perhaps broker fishing trips, especially bass fishing trips, into Cuba. Many thought back then as President Reagan was dismantling the USSR that Cuba might embrace an open, freely elected government. They thought relations could be improved. 

Travel by U.S. citizens to Cuba was still not allowed. But the rest of the world traveled there routinely, and communication was simple. 

To make a long story short, a seven-day trip was planned where I would travel to Cuba, via Mexico and fish for five days. My goal was to take cover photos of large bass. At least that was the business objective. The fun fact was that we had to catch the bass first. So before we could “work,” we had to fish. I know, tough duty but someone had to do it. 

The flight from Atlanta to Cancun was a first-world flight. The hop from Cancun into Havana, Cuba was awful; a prop plane with only a window drape between the cockpit and passengers, no pressurized cabin and no A/C. This flight took place in July. 

In Havana, the airport looked worse than the plane. We passed through immigration that afternoon and were loaded on modern tour buses for the trip to the lake. We weren’t fishing the legendary Treasure Lake in the western lowlands of the island. Instead, we were headed for a highland reservoir called Hanabanilla. 

The four-hour drive to the lake gave us a clear view of how the people lived. It was awful. It became evident that money was spent at the Catholic Church and the baseball fields, where the fields were manicured and pristine. The rest of the community was dirt floors and tin roofs and one naked light bulb per house burning in the night. Transportation was by very old autos for the fortunate, but more often wheeled carts were pulled by mules and horses. 

Our resort accommodations at the lake looked like a bad joke from Russia. It is a concrete warren of rooms, stark and hard-edged and with the minimum of accommodations. There were 16 in our party, two to a room and two to a boat. The food was very good, even if plain. The service was excellent. The boats and gas motors were knock-off ski-barges with 40 hp tiller engines, no trolling motors and no depthfinders. We were there for bass over 10 pounds. 

It stayed cloudy the entire time we were there. During this trip, the group boated 11 bass reported as 10 pounds or greater. All weights were overstated by about a pound. But some bass did weigh in the 11- to 13-lb. range. I have never been to a better bass lake.

I caught my best bass trolling a deep-diving crankbait. The fish jumped and fought very hard, and the guide missed it twice with the net. But he did finally net her, and we drove directly to the lodge to record her weight, and the photos of course. 

“Grande Pescado” the guides exclaimed as the scale read 10-lbs., 6-ozs. It was a spring scale with a round dial and a hook on top to hang the scale, and a hook on the bottom to hang a metal basket that held the fish. They gave me a certificate showing my fish’s weight. 

Then I corrected the record. I removed the bass from the basket, and turned the tare screw on the bottom of the scale to zero the dial, so I could see what the bass weighed without the weight of the basket. She weighed 9 pounds even. She was beautiful. 

The day before we flew home, they drove us back to Havana, put us up at the National Hotel, stately but decaying then, and took us out to the Tropicana for dinner. So, there I sat, watching long-legged Cuban dancers wearing their version of Las Vegas show costumes strut and prance while I drank Cuba Libre (rum and Coke) and smoked a Cuban cigar. 

It was awful. It was a police state where everyone was controlled and very little was true. I didn’t keep any pics from that trip. I didn’t want them. I had enjoyed myself in an island prison, and I felt dirty. I ache for the Cuban people. This president supports that police state. And now it seems my tax dollars will be going where I promised myself my money would not.