Paired with an appropriately-sized tungsten weight, the lizard might be the most versatile lure in the boat at El Salto and Picachos. You can Texas Rig or Carolina Rig them You can flip them. You can even catch fish swimming one or bouncing it along the bottom on a slow, steady retrieve. Moreover, they’re inexpensive and durable.

I am a classic overpreparer and also a tad disorganized when I’m in the midst of a hot bite, so my m.o. is to take a belt and suspenders approach. That means that even though I have a huge supply of tackle stored at Anglers Inn there are additional small items that I restock every time without actually knowing whether they need to be supplemented. The good news is that they’re all inexpensive, take up little space and don’t weigh much.

Sometimes at El Salto you can get more and bigger bites by having different lures than everyone else. You can also maximize your landing percentages in various ways. Here are three tweaks I may try on our next trip South of the Border to maximize my catch-and-land rate.

On this June 2021 trip to El Salto, Anglers Inn, I am going to make it my goal to fish with all types of different swimbaits while others are cranking. I’ll be back in touch to let you know how my research turned out. Now it’s back to the garage to load a Plano tackle box with an assortment of swimbaits.

Not everyone who travels to Lake El Salto or Lake Picachos has been fishing their entire lifetime. I know that it can be terrifying to think that everyone else will be an expert, and they’ll laugh at your lack of skills, but these lakes are actually the perfect vacation spot for any interested angler, whether they’re a pro or have not yet caught their first bass.

We’ve left tackle at Anglers Inn for several years and it has consistently been safe, well-kept and available upon arrival. Here are some strategies to ensure that’ll continue to be true – and also to be certain that it’s ready to fish when we get there. With a little bit of extra planning and effort, we save myself a lot of heartache and wasted time.

There are times at Lake El Salto when the fish are so thick and so hungry on a given spot that you can take your time casting to them and you can experience success with any casting angle. It’s not always that easy. Many times you have to hunt and peck to get things done.

One of Lake El Salto’s best features is also often one of its most maddening: the sheer variety of ways that you can catch big bass down there. On our most recent trip, we caught fish that were ankle deep, and others that were 30 feet deep, and in every case both slow-moving and fast-moving lures came into play. For an ADD-afflicted tackle junkie like me, that presents a hellish temptation.

When we first returned from our November trip to El Salto, I was incredibly jacked up about the flutter spoon bite we’d just experienced. I’d gone there on a mission and accomplished it. A couple of months later I keep reliving those bites over and over.

If you elect to bring rods to Mexico, bring a dedicated crankbait combo, not talking about something specifically tailored to squarebills or lipless baits, but rather a rod and reel setup aimed at big deep divers. Up until a decade or so ago, you could get away with something more generalized for throwing what were then the deepest-diving plugs – like the Fat Free Shad – but with the addition of behemoths like the Strike King 10XD you’re going to need something that makes the job easier and more efficient. The wrong gear will wear you out. 

Toward the latter half of the trip I started experimenting with the SPRO Rat. The first night that I threw it I substantially outfished Hanna, who was alternating between our normal one-two punch of a Whopper Plopper and a Rio Rico – and this was despite the fact that she got first crack at every target. In fact, several times she made multiple casts down a key alley without eliciting a strike and then the first shot at the rat produced a massive explosion.

If your luggage space is limited on your next fishing trip South of the Border I suggest that you adhere closely to my past lure recommendations. However, keeping an open mind is critical because while the bass at El Salto and Picachos are typically not hyper-picky, there are times when specific options – even slight deviations – will increase your catch rate.

When it’s “on,” the topwater bite at Mexico’s Lake El Salto is just about the most fun you can have with your clothes on. No, it’s not quite as violent as Brazilian peacock bass blasting big prop baits, or South Pacific Giant Trevally plucking birds off the surface, but in terms of largemouths I’ve yet to see anything that compares. That doesn’t mean it’s always easy.

When picking line for Mexican bass fishing, as far as I’m concerned you should go with what you’re comfortable with, and err on the side of keeping it heavier rather than lighter. On the latter point, I don’t use anything under 17-pound test.