Date: April 16th - May 10th, 2009
Name: Anglers Inn Lake El Salto
Air Temp: 68°/76°F early morning & late evening. Siesta Time 91°/ 97°F
Water Temp: 74°/ 77°F
Average number of bass per boat per day: 60-80
Largest bass caught: 11.3 pounds
Productive Baits of Past Two Weeks:
Topwater Baits:
Lobina Lures Rio Rico poppers or Yellow Magics: white, white with sparkles and bleeding shad.
Heddon Zara Spook and Lucky Craft Sammy: shad, chrome with black top and white
Swimbaits:
Storm WildEye 4 -inch Swim Shads: shad, white with chartreuse top, pearl & bunker are hot colors
Yum Money Minnows or Basstrix: 5-inch in bluegill, hologram shad and herring with 5/0 or 6/0, 1/8 oz weighted hook. Also with blade runner ½ Paddle Head jig and Blade Runner Spintrix jig head spinner.
Plastics:
Eight-inch Zoom Lizards: watermelon red flake & watermelon
Berkley Power Worms: 10-inch, black with blue tail and green pumpkin
Yamamoto Senkos, Yum Dingers or Bass Pro Shops 5, 6 & 7 inch Stinkos: pumpkinseed, watermelon red flake and black with blue flake - A small bullet weight goes very well with these baits in 1/8 and 1/16-ounce
Zoom Super Flukes: pearl white
Reaction Innovations Skinny Dipper in Penetration and Dirty Sanchez
Crankbaits:
Rat-L-Traps: ½ & ¾-ounce in silver with blue back and silver with black back
Bomber Fat Free Shad deep diver in citrus shad
Lucky Craft CB D20 in Green Apple and Aurora Black
Spinnerbaits:
Booyah double willow blade: 1/2 and 3/4 ounce in white/chartreuse and white
Jigs:
Strike King Premium jig in ½ and ¾ ounce in black/blue, green pumpkin and watermelon
Comments:
We want to come back! We’ve heard that comment again and again from countless clients ever since we first opened Anglers Inn Lodge on Lake El Salto. The time of year doesn’t matter. Visitors have expressed that sentiment whether they’ve been here in December as well as July. Do we like to hear that sort of thing? You better believe it! We bust our collective tails here at Anglers Inn to provide the kind of experience you’re not going to forget. We invite you to take a look at the comments of clients who have visited us recently. As usual, we’re not big on tooting our own flute. We much prefer to let our visitors do it for us. Here are a few examples of what we’re talking about. Following are comments from clients who stayed with us from mid-April to mid-May.
George Tabone is a valued client who has visited Anglers Inn many times. Here’s what George had to say about his recent visit: “I’ve just returned from another great visit to Angler's Inn at El Salto Lake. This was my 13th trip and I was joined by my father Frank, Uncle George and good friend Jimmy North. As always everything was fantastic and exceeded expectations. The rooms were clean and cool, the food was delicious and the staff unbelievable. Jose, Sammy, Tony, Joel and the entire crew made our stay wonderful. “As for the fishing, once again El Salto did not disappoint us. We primarily focused on bigger fish this trip so our numbers were not staggering, but the quality was phenomenal. I personally added 10.2 and 11.3-pound bass to my El Salto record books. In addition, I lost count of the 4 to 8-pounders I caught. Most fish were caught on watermelon red lizards and 5-inch swimbaits. My father also landed a 10-pounder and Jimmy boated a 10-pounder on consecutive days. That's five fish over 10-pounds in just four days. It doesn't get much better than that. Thanks for all you and your staff do to make these trips so special for us. I look forward to seeing you at the end of May on my next trip.
Keith Kaneko and his father were also among our recent visitors. “My father and I want to thank you for the kind offer to visit and fish El Salto,” Keith says. “It was a special trip for us and, even more, it was a much needed getaway for Dad. It was quite special to share some father-son fishing time again. Your staff and service was top notch as always. Dad was constantly amazed at the attention to detail that your staff provides. He really felt at home there at El Salto. “Also, it was truly a fishing trip of a lifetime for him. He landed some monster bass. As usual, he landed more big fish than I do no matter where we fish. He ALWAYS lands the biggest fish. It was great to see him with that ‘big-fish-smile’ again. After the first day of the trip I could tell that he had finally ‘unplugged’, let go, and just relaxed. I had not seen him relax like this in quite some time. “I thank each of you wholeheartedly for the opportunity for Dad to join me on this trip, it’s much appreciated.”
Mike Ishikawa is another angler who has been here before. He says his latest El Salto adventure was the best ever for big bass. Here are some of the details he shared with us. “Lance and I had another very nice trip to Anglers Inn. As usual, the staff from the driver Hugo to the dining staff was great. “The fishing was also great. We had our greatest big fish trip ever. We caught 60 bass between 6 and 10.5-pounds. Lance got the big one. We averaged about 65 fish per day. On the last morning we caught 57 bass before departing. We fished the shallows in the morning and moved out to the flats and fished some drop offs in the afternoon. Senkos rigged either Wacky or Texas Style were great for me. Lance caught his share of large bass on a Berkley 10-inch worm in black with a blue tail. On our very first day we caught 28 big bass between 6 and 10-pounds!”
Our good friend Stan Fagerstrom, of Arizona, came back to El Salto again last month. Stan is a writer who helped pioneer bass fishing in the western United States. He’s been writing about bass fishing for more than a half century. He’s also a member of both the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame and the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame. We already knew how Stan felt about El Salto because he’s told us many times. He considers it the best bass fishing he’s ever found in a lifetime devoted to fishing and writing about it. Here’s what he had to share in regard to his latest visit: “When my friend Heidi Roth, editor of Gary Yamamoto's Internet magazine, heard I was going to El Salto in late April she had a question. Would I, she asked, be interested in trying a couple of the new Yamamato worms designed especially for big bass. She went on to say that anglers had been hammering the fish with these new baits on other lakes. I told her I'd be pleased to give them a try. The way things turned out, I was glad I did.
“The two new worms, they are a 12-inch Curly Tail and a 10-inch Kut Tail, were our most productive on the recent El Salto visit. We caught more fish and larger fish on these two baits. I had my best success with the new 12-inch worm Curly Tail. My partner, Marion Sundwall, of Idaho, got most of his bass on the 10-inch Kut Tail. Our best colors were black with blue flakes and a watermelon with red flakes. “We fished these big worms rigged Texas Style with sufficient weight to keep them on the bottom during the retrieve. Some of our best success was in water 20-feet or more in depth. It was essential to fish the worms slowly with an occasional lift and slight shake of the rod tip. “These lures, along with a YUM Money Minnow in a white shade, took a bunch of fish from 6 to 7 1/2-pounds. I also caught a number of fish on a 5-inch Swimming Senko rigged Texas Style and fished behind an easy-turning Max Lure Smile Blade. That combination was hot when I was at El Salto last year and it was still productive this time around.
“My biggest thrill during our morning topwater fishing came while I was casting a 3/8th-ounce Chug Bug. I'd worked that lure all the way back to the boat and was just about to pick it up and throw it again when---wham! I don't know how big that fish was. I do know it busted my 20-pound line like it was cheap cord string. I was lucky it didn't do the same to my rod because it jerked the tip clear down under the boat when it hit. “I've fished bass in a good many spots around the country. If there are bass anywhere that fight any harder than those El Salto fish, I've not found 'em. Hook a 2-pounder and you flat won't know for sure it's not four times that size until it finally tires out enough so you can get a look at it. “There are so many other things to be said about Anglers Inn and El Salto Lake. Over the past half century I've had the rare good fortune to be a guest at fishing lodges from Alaska to the Amazon and from Argentina to New Zealand. Taking the treatment, service and food I've experienced into consideration as well as fishing results, I've not seen a darn one that tops or even equals Anglers Inn Lodge at Mexico's Lake El Salto.
“As I’ve mentioned, my latest experience came during the last week in April. I had a companion who had never fished at El Salto before or visited an Anglers Inn. I got almost as big a charge out of his reaction as I did catching a bunch of bass myself. He darn near went bonkers! “Nothing in life is worth much unless it can be shared by at least two people. I don't care how much you tell close friends about El Salto Lake fishing and Anglers Inn food and service, it has to be experienced to be truly appreciated. “But there's a warning it's only fair to include. Don't go there planning on making just one visit. It's not going to happen. That's why the fantastic operation Billy Chapman Jr. has put together down there south of the border gets so many repeat customers. The last time I checked I found Anglers Inn annually gets more than 80 percent repeat customers. Wow! I know a whole lot of businesses that would like to be able to have that kind of record. “The number of returning clients also provides the single best yardstick as to what kind of reception you'll receive once you get there. Those El Salto bass will provide the same kind of unforgettable experience as does Anglers Inn. I've been there enough to know what I’m talking about. I still get a memory filled red hot case of the ‘I want to go back bass fishin' itch’ just talking or writing about it.”
Enough said. Have you planned your next visit to Anglers Inn El Salto? Give us a call to talk bass fishing or to make preparations for your next trip. Time is going by.
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