Yera, 42, is slightly built, and his wire-rimmed glasses give him a professorial air.

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Such sportsmen turn to Samuel Yera, a guide and perhaps the best bass fisherman in Cuba.

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In the mid-1990s Yera fished in tournaments on the weekends, winning the national championship three times.

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Yera guides his battered fiberglass boat into the deep, limpid water, using an old 25hp Yamaha motor.

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Yera tells his customers what lure to use and where to cast it.

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In 1997 Yera's obsession finally got the better of him, and he quit his engineering job to become a full-time fishing guide.

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"It was all kind of terra incognito down there, " says novelist Jay McInerney, who fished in saltwater with Yera and landed a 40-pound cubera snapper.

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Yera, dreaming of a visit to the U.S. (forbidden for now), pumps his clients for information about Lake Okeechobee in Florida and Lake Fork in Texas.

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"The starter's pistol fires, and then you just hear the chop-chop-chop of people rowing as fast as they can to get to the good spots, " Yera says.

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The story has always had a particular resonance for Yera.

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Yera's favorite place to take American clients is Lake Hanabanilla, a 7, 900-acre reservoir near his home in Santa Clara, in the heart of the Sierra Escambray Mountains, 170 miles southeast of Havana.

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