K.I.S.S. – May/June 2023 El Salto Techniques and Patterns
The fishing on our May/June 2023 trip to Anglers Inn Lake El Salto was very good, with solid numbers and a higher percentage of 4-pound, 5-pound and larger fish than just about any prior visit. That doesn’t mean the fishing was wide open, though. You couldn’t throw out a Day-Glo orange Hellbender or a cigarette butt or some off-brand plastics and expect to get bit.
I’d say that of the hundreds of bass our group caught, 40% were on crankbaits, 40% were on some form of soft plastics, and 20% came on something else. The topwater bite was off. I caught a single 4-pounder on a Rio Rico, and while our friend Randy May caught a 7-pounder and a near 8-pounder on a River2Sea Rover, even he could count his topwater fish on one hand.
The primary lesson I take away from this (after 20+ trips to El Salto and Picachos) is that it’s different every time. If you whack ‘em one trip and return under virtually the same conditions with only those lures that worked previously, there’s a chance you will be insufficiently armed for success. Yes, bring the staple in ample supplies, but don’t forget a small selection of everything else that’s likely to work. As I’ve often written, the lodge does your laundry every day, so save the space in your luggage for extra lures. You may only use 10% of what you bring, but that 10% seems to change every time.
Miscellaneous Lure Notes
I typically try to save 20% of my vacation time at the lake trying out new gear. It keeps the process fresh and occasionally adds another arrow to the quiver – like the Whopper Plopper or the Slender Pointer. On this trip, however, I never caught a single fish on a lure with which I hadn’t already experienced some success.
I desperately wanted to catch a big bass on my SPRO Rat 50 or Whopper Plopper 130, but after a couple of days throwing them in prime conditions without a sniff, they went back into the box. It just wasn’t happening.
While the topwater bite was off, there was a solid jerkbait bite early and late in the areas where you’d expect a Rico to wreck ‘em. That’s a valuable lesson I’ve learned again and again – when the bass are there but won’t break the surface, offer them something else. Our friends Mike Yee and Samantha Sukupcak likewise had some solid results with a Zoom Super Fluke.
I disfavor Carolina Rigging, but realize that it’s a necessary evil at times. We didn’t add it into the rotation this trip until the second to last day. That was a mistake because it mopped up quite a few fish, including some true jumbos, in areas where the cranking bite had turned off unexpectedly.
We caught more fish – including bigs -- pitching and casting 5-inch Senkos than 6-inch versions.
Deep Cranking Observations
I love this time of year at El Salto because we get to deep crank, which can produce ridiculous numbers and also resulted in my El Salto personal best. It’s something we don’t get to do at home so I relish the opportunity.
Normally the El Salto bass love a crankbait burned, with occasional pulls and pauses, and that was mostly true this time, but there was one evening when I wasn’t getting bites and Hanna informed me that she was doing well with a much slower retrieve. On the next cast I put that info into action and caught a solid 6-pounder.
There were several sessions when a longer-than-usual pause was absolutely critical. You’d hit cover or bottom, let the lure start to float back up, and the rod would get ripped out of your hand.
Our friend Paul Fisler caught the big fish of the trip (and his PB), a 10.44 hawg, on the classic chartreuse and powder blue Strike King 6XD.
While I often favor the 10XD to get deeper and for it’s bigger profile, and caught many fish with them on this trip, the 6XD and similar cranks produced just as many fish, and seemed to get hung up less.
Color didn’t really seem to matter much of the time. One morning my friend Marc Shoenfelt cranked a gaudy chartreuse crank while I threw a hyper-natural shad pattern right next to him and we seemed to catch equal quantities and quality fish.
In addition to the Strike King cranks, I experienced success with a Rapala DT20, Berkley Dredger 20.5 and 25.5, and a 6th Sense Crush 500DD.
For some reason, I never threw the El Salto classic Citrus Shad Fat Free Shad.
El Salto Summer Patterns and Windows
Timing can be everything this time of year at El Salto. There are spots where you can crank up 20-50 fish in an hour at 10am which may produce nearly nothing at other times. The guides know these windows of opportunity.
The guides also understand the importance of angles. Sometimes they’ll pull up on a key piece of structure and catch very little, then shift 20 yards one way or the other and you’ll start cracking them. I don’t believe that the biggest schools migrate substantially, but they may slide down the ridge or the bank a bit.
We had several days when it was cloudy for much of the time, but it never really helped the shallow bite. In fact, in my anecdotal experience, the sunny, super-windy afternoons were some of the best periods.
We’ll be back next year at almost the same time. If you’d like to join us (or go at any other time), we’d appreciate it if you’d book through Hanna. You’ll never pay an extra penny for her help, and we both stay clued in on the simple gear and pattern tweaks that often make a huge difference.
