Lake El Salto is Mexico’s hottest Florida-strain bass factory.
Larry Larsen discovered excellent topwater
action where a shallow cut transitioned to a 20-foot dropoff. Larsen
has been on numerous Mexico bass fishing trips.
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A glimmer of light silhouetted arid foothills as we motored through
flooded timber and around a few small islands into the main arm of the
big lake. Our guide, Carlos, headed straight toward our topwater hole, a
200-yard stretch of pastureland bank broken by two wide, shallow cuts.
A sharp dropoff into 20 feet of water made the edge ideal for
topwater, and an overcast sky and a moderate wind promised an extended
bite. Dave Burkhardt of Clermont and I were sampling Lake El Salto in
northwestern Mexico. Both of us love topwater fishing, and we’d had
maybe an hour of surface activity on the first two days of our trip,
primarily right at this same spot.
Largemouth bass were breaking the surface as we pulled up and dropped
the trolling motor. Dave tossed to one splash while I shot my bait at
another one. It was not our first double or even our tenth, but our
confidence boost was maxed out. The two fish, weighing somewhere between
three and four pounds, were quickly brought to the boat and released.
Dave again tossed the edge of the drop in front of the thin-water cut
and was walking his cigar-type minnow back along the surface when a big
fish tore into it and headed for the depths. He set back on the rod and
hung on. Fortunately, the bass headed away from the only visible
submerged tree in that area.
“Keep it coming up,” Carlos instructed. “There are some trees below the surface too.”
“How big is it?” I asked, straining to catch a glimpse of the fish.
“Don’t know,” Dave replied, as he ran forward to the bow and held his
rod high as I ducked under it. The fish circled the boat and wallowed
on the surface about 20 feet out.
Submerged timber comprises a great deal of habitat on El Salto.
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“That’s a butterball,” I said as our guide slipped the net under the fish.
“Or a watermelon,” my excited partner quipped. “It should go 10 pounds!”
The fish had a small head and fat body on a relatively short frame.
The proportions made guessing difficult for us Florida boys. Both Dave
and Carlos had sworn the first day that one of my big fish was a
10-pounder. It weighed a little over 9 on our scale.
Dave’s fish was shorter, but a lot fatter. It looked huge to me. We
had it on the scale soon and they were right on this one: Almost 10 1/2
pounds.
Fish continued to feed on or near the surface in the dim light. My
biggest of the day was maybe three inches longer than Dave’s but was
much leaner. Compared to the typical bass we catch in Florida, it was on
the plump side for sure.
My hopes for a double-digit fish were dashed when the scale showed
only 9 3/4 pounds. Still, that’s a nice fish anywhere and I was happy.
We headed to the Anglers Inn for lunch and a siesta at 11 a.m. We had
landed 100 largemouths of varying sizes and some 80 of them on topwater
plugs. Most were 3 to 5 pounds and plenty were 6 or 7.
We added another 60 bass to our day’s tally after lunch on Texas- and
Carolina-rigged worms and crankbaits. It was a big day for us, but the
first two hadn’t been too shabby, either. Dave and I had caught and
released 100 on day one up to 9 pounds and 80 on day two.
Lake El Salto, at the base of the Sierra Madre Mountains, only 90
minutes from the coastal resort city of Mazatlan, is not just a numbers
lake. These waters today have Mexico’s biggest largemouth bass,
according to Burkhardt. This was his tenth visit to a lake where he has
averaged two 10-plus pounders on each of his previous ventures. His
biggest was a whopper 15-pound, 2-ounce largemouth, and on that day, his
five largest bass totaled a little over 52 pounds!
Dave Burkhardt (fishing below) hoists a typical El Salto “football.”
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The lake record at Lago El Salto is 18 pounds, 8 ounces, caught in
May 2002, according to resort manager “Chappy” Chapman. Chappy, who is
the 28-year-old son of Anglers Inn owner Billy Chapman Jr., has been
working at the resort for most of his adult life.
“The growth of these fish has been phenomenal,” he explains. “My
father and grandfather stocked the lake as it was filling (at about
3,000 acres) with 60,000 Florida bass fingerlings in 1985 and opened a
lodge in 1990. In 1995, we found a dead 16-pounder floating on the
surface with a tilapia stuck in its throat. For a largemouth to grow to
16 pounds in just 10 years is tremendous.”
From what we can tell, Lake El Salto should be at or near the top of
the list of Mexican bass lakes for some time. But keep in mind it’s an
impressive list.
The big reservoirs in Mexico are attractive to U.S. anglers for a
number of reasons. For one, the lakes typically produce better numbers
and sizes of largemouth bass than do most U.S. waters, even in Florida.
Very seldom do visitors have a slow day on El Salto or any other Mexican
bass lake. Mild weather makes for an extended growing season, and there
is very little fishing pressure or predation on the lakes. Package
prices including guide, boat, food and accommodations, are very
reasonable considering the dollar to peso exchange rate and wages south
of the border.
The Mexican government seems to build a new lake every 5 to 10 years;
ground breaking to complete filling can take up to 15 years. In the
next 10 years, Chappy’s father Billy Chapman Jr. expects to see two or
three more reservoirs in the range of 20,000 to 70,000 acres. Most of
the lakes are built initially for irrigation purposes, strictly for
opening up new farmland nearby and not for hydroelectric generation.
Several years later, some will become hydroelectric producers when
regional needs warrant.
Today there are about 17 impoundments on the west slope of the Sierra
Madre Mountains, and about five on the east side. The mountain range
starts around El Paso, Texas, and runs down the center of Mexico. Most
of the steeper gradients with substantial rivers drain to the west into
the Pacific Ocean, and that’s why the Mexican government has created
more reservoirs on that side.
From the day largemouth bass fry are stocked in the initial backup of
water, it normally takes five years before they and the lake mature
enough to support quality fishing. Tilapia are the main forage, and
these fish are stocked by the government to provide a source of revenue
to villagers displaced by the impoundments. The tilapia netting seldom
impacts the bass fishery.
Mother Nature takes care of everything else. A lake is typically a
“numbers” lake before fish grow to trophy proportions. Typical growth
rate on a new lake is 1 11/2 to 2 pounds a year. The fishing for bigger
fish starts getting good in five years when the bass are 8 to 10 pounds.
The numbers may drop off some then.
“On almost every new lake in Mexico, the big fish after four years is
8 pounds,” says Billy Chapman Jr., “and then they are 10 pounds after
five years. As some lakes get older than that, they don’t continue to
see the 2-pound-per-year growth rate in their bass.”
He should know, after outfitting clients on several Mexican bass
lakes for over 29 years. Billy Jr. began his Mexico outfitting career in
1973 when he went to work as a fishing guide on Lake Dominguez for his
outfitter father, Billy Chapman Sr. In 1975, his father stocked Florida
bass into the newly flooded reservoir called Lake Baccarac. Billy Jr.
opened up a new operation for his dad on that lake in 1980 and hosted
thousands of visiting anglers during its heydays in the early 1980s.
Grilled lunch at Anglers Inn.
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In 1985, Billy Jr. stocked 200,000 Florida-strain largemouth fry from
a fish hatchery in Houston into the newly formed Lake El Salto. He
opened a mobile lodge at El Salto in 1990 and has been on the lake for
most of the 15 years since. He briefly moved his lodge to Lake Comedero
in 1993 and 1994 and to Lake Huites in 1997 and 1998, but he didn’t have
the success he had hoped for, so he returned to El Salto each time.
Formed by the damming of the Elota River, Lago El Salto has 45 miles
of shoreline and numerous rocky islands to fish around. There are plenty
of submerged mesquite tree forests and hilltops, creek channels and a
couple of flooded cemeteries. Forage sources include tilapia, as well as
threadfin and gizzard shad and crawfish. The lake varies from about
24,000 surface acres at full pool to 16,000 at the end of the dry season
in May or June. Day-to-day water levels are fairly consistent, as the
lake is not connected to another lake and the only water leaving is for
irrigation of the fields around the area. On a chain of lakes, such as
Lake Dominguez at the bottom, then Lake Hidalgo and finally Lake Huites
above, water can be released quickly from one of the upper
“holding-type” reservoirs to fill a lower one.
“That can affect the levels greatly,” says Chappy. “I’ve seen the
water fluctuate 30 feet overnight on Huites when Hidalgo needed water
and got it.”
Agua Milpa is the newest Mexican lake, and Chapman has property
there, but the government is building another lake above it called El
Cajon. It may be 4 to 6 years away from completion, and that lake will
be a holding lake for Agua Milpa, according to Chappy. Consequently, it
will fluctuate a lot more than the lower lake, and the Chapmans decided
not to operate at Agua Milpa for the time being.
“We always ended up coming back to El Salto,” says Billy Jr., “and
until there is a better Mexican lake to fish, I’m not moving anywhere.”
