The author's guide, Samuel Yera

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Samuel and I seem to be doing an odd little dance. The deal is that I hold up lures for his inspection and he keeps shaking his head. He negates a 43⁄8-inch jointed Rapala. He turns down a 6-inch bubblegum floating worm. "Bigger," he says. We're in a motorized skiff on Lake Leonero. The anglers, two-man teams from Cuba's 14 provinces (plus an extra team from the host province and one from the Island of Youth, off Cuba's southern coast), are spread out over the lake somewhere around us.

I'm here to watch the fishermen, but Samuel says we need to keep our distance from them, especially on the first day. "The fish and the anglers are both very sensitive to noise." This, I am pretty sure, is bull. I think Samuel just wants to catch some fish, partly to ease his obvious chagrin at not being in the race, and partly because he is just a diehard bass man.

And the bass on Leonero like their baits not only big but apparently disruptive, too, because the lure that finally gets the nod is a no-name Devil's Horse-"style topwater. This fat cigar of a bait has propellers fore and aft, and treble hooks the size of little chandeliers. It's so big and raucous that I've never even been tempted to tie it on. But Samuel likes it.