Fishing In Cuba

Pacific Angler Expeditions is excited to offer two Cuban fly fishing dream destinations. Both the Zapata Peninsula and Cayo Largo offer phenomenal warm water sight fishing on the flats. Picture yourself wading, knee deep in water warm enough for your bath tub, looking for some of the largest Bonefish to be found. This guided fishery includes skiffs to run about in the endless mangrove forests and flats, but also to float along the channels and the edges of the flats while scanning for rolling Tarpon, toothy Barracudas, feisty Jacks and a whole variety of other Caribbean swimmers.

Cayo Largo Expedition

Cayo Largo was developed by the Cuban Government as a resort island getaway because of the islands spectacular beaches and the surrounding crystal clear azure waters. The 27, 000 square km National Park that surrounds Cayo Largo is an outstanding shallow water fishing oasis in the Caribbean Sea. The northern side of the island where the submarine shelf is extended is an ideal environment for both fly fishermen and spin casters. The average water depth of this enormous area is between 3-5 feet and the water clarity is exceptional. You can see large schools of Jacks and Permit from a long way off when the water visibility is this good. The south side of Cayo Largo is protected by a gorgeous offshore reef and the powdery white sand flats found on this side of the island are a wading fisherman’s dream. These flats consistently produce some of the largest Bonefish caught in Cuba!

The Cayo Largo fishing area is broken down into 6 separate micro areas. Each boat will spend one day during the course of the fishing week at each of these micro sites. This is done to ensure that entire area is not pressured and that the fish don’t get “too educated”. There are very few places on earth, other than Belize, where there is such a consistency of shallow water flats species found in one location. Bonefish, Permit, Tarpon, Barracuda, Jacks, and Snappers all abound here in fantastic numbers. Fishing Cayo Largo is all about serendipity because you just never know what’s going to swim in front of you. This is an excellent location for a Grand Slam, so if the Slam is on your “to do list”, Cayo Largo must be visited. Another aspect of the quality of the fishing at Cayo Largo is the size of the bonefish found here. These fish are huge, with the average size about 5 pounds, and the Cayo Largo Bonefish are incredibly aggressive so if you make a decent presentation the chances of it being refused are almost nil.

Cayo Largo is located about 70 km off the southern coast of mainland Cuba. The island is situated at the far eastern edge of the Archipelago de los Cannareos, which is a large chain of about 350 stunningly beautiful islands found off of Cuba’s rugged southern-central coastline. A large chunk of the area surrounding Cayo Largo has been turned into a National Park by the Cuban Government, which means that commercial fishing is strictly prohibited. The only other anglers you will see are those you come on the trip with, as only the 6 skiffs Pacific Angler Expeditions’ has access to are permitted to fish these waters! As a result of this lack of human pressure, the flats fishing at Cayo Largo is truly exceptional.

Zapata Peninsula Expedtion

Zapata Peninsula is amazing flats fishing, period. Because the fishing takes place inside a national park, The Cuban Government has banned the use of boat engines inside the reserve. The water is so shallow in Las Salinas that it can take several days before you see water deeper than your knees. Anglers that enjoy the excitement of shallow water sight fishing will love the opportunities the Las Salinas environment presents.

The Zapata Peninsula, the largest swampland in the Caribbean, is about 2.5 hours from Havana and our guests access it in comfortable four wheel drives. At just under half a million hectares, the Zapata takes up almost a third of the Matanzas District of Cuba. This enormous mangrove marshland encompasses the entire peninsula and is home to millions of birds, mammals and reptiles. It’s sparsely populated when compared with the rest of Cuba and has been declared a Biosphere Reserve by the Cuban Government. As ecosystems go, this is about as pristine a location as you would hope to find. When fishing the Zapata, our hotel is situated right on the ocean on the infamous Bay of Pigs. Our comfortable four wheel drives will be waiting to take you inside the National Park to Las Salinas, the small launch site where we meet our guides and skiffs each morning. To the non-angling eye there is nothing to distinguish Las Salinas as a top flight warm water fishing destination, but you know what it means to see a line up of skiffs on the beach in the middle of a massive mangrove forest with water averaging 6-18 inches deep...

On an average day at Salinas, you can expect to get just about every bonefish set up imaginable: large singles and doubles cruising the edges of the flats, tailers working in the white sand, small pods of 5 pounders methodically cruising amongst the mangrove shoots and huge schools of 500 or more fish suspended in a foot and half of water. The average sized fish is somewhere around 3-4 pounds, 5-7 pound bonefish are common and every trip there are chances at a couple of 8-10lb Bonefish. It’s not just the size of the bonefish that makes fishing Salinas so much fun, but also the number of fish we find here. Guests will get shots at other species like Permit, Barracuda and the odd Snook, but it’s the quality of the bonefishing that makes this place so unique. When we’re based down in the Zapata Peninsula, each angler also gets 1 day of fishing on the Rio Negro. This river is an extraordinarily beautiful place and has been essentially untouched by the humans. On the river there are two guests and one guide per boat. The river is a great change of pace from fishing the flats and is loaded with Tarpon and Snook. The average Tarpon is between 10-50 pounds and there are plenty of good sized Snook, Jacks and Cubera Snappers as well.