What They Bitin’? – El Salto June 2022

On our just-completed trip to Anglers Inn Lake El Salto, numbers were down but average size was up. For example, one afternoon, Hanna and I landed 20 fat Florida-strain largemouths, with 12 of them over 5 pounds. On our toughest day, we landed 18 fish total, and on our best one we had about 75. Overall, that meant the bite windows were short and it paid to have a “proven winner” in your hands when they opened up. We did try a few new lures, with various levels of success, but as a general rule sticking to the basics was the best strategy.

Since we have no sponsors, we can give you the unvarnished truth about what worked for us. Below is a list of the lures that we used successfully between June 18 and June 24 of this year. It’s relatively short compared to what we’ve used on past June trips. Remember, results may be skewed by our personal preferences and the amount of time we kept a lure in our hand. Feel free to use this list for future packing efforts, but remember to always focus on the basics:

Prime Time Players

These are the lures that produced the greatest number of fish over multiple days.

• Megabass Vision 110 (Best Color: French Pearl)

• Lucky Craft Slender Pointer 127 (Best Color: Ghost Minnow)

• Jackall Squad Minnow SP (Best Color: Sexy Shad)

• Strike King 6XD (Best Color: Chartreuse Blue Back)

• Berkley Dredger 25.5 (Best Color: Homer)

• Zoom Swimmer (Best Color: Ayu)

• Storm 5” Wildeye Swim Shad (Best Color: Mullet)

• 5” Yamamoto Senko (Best Color: Watermelon Moondust)

• Zoom Super Fluke (Best Color: White)

Heroes Off the Bench

These are lures that produced a handful of fish, but only for short periods of time.

• Berkley Warpig (Best Color: Chrome Blue Back)

• Strike King 8XD (Best Color: Sexy Shad)

• Strike King 10XD (Best Color: Barfish)

• Paycheck Baits Repoman (Best Color: Bone Crusher)

• 10” Power Worm (Best Color: Black with Blue Tail)

• SPRO BBZ Rat #50 (Best Color: Ninja)

• Berkley Choppo 120 (Best Color: Bone)

Tried But Didn’t Produce

These are lures we tried for very short windows which didn’t produce fish. I will try all of them again down there, either because they produced in the past or I expect that different conditions will produce different results.

• Strike King Sexy Spoon

• Megabass Sleeper Gill

• Various swim jigs

• Various spinnerbaits

• Original Chatterbait Elite

• Z-Man/Evergreen Jack Hammer

Notes

• The Zoom Swimmer seems to be out of stock many places right now. There are a number of other hollow swimbaits that might work in their place, like the Basstrix, Berkley, True Bass or Yum versions. I rigged them on 3/4 ounce Strike King Internal Swimbait Heads, as well as both underspins and regular screwlock swimbait heads (3/4 and 1 ounce) from Ledgehead Lures. The non-bladed versions seemed to outproduce the underspin.

• The Swimmer produced the largest swimbait fish, but the Wildeye Swim Shad produced more bites. It excelled with a variety of retrieves throughout the water column.

• This was the first time in ~20 El Salto trips where I didn’t make a single cast with a 6” Senko, a 7” Senko, or a Carolina Rig

• I did not catch a bass on the Rio Rico, normally my favorite topwater in Mexico

• More information about the rat bite coming soon.

• While hard jerkbaits were probably the second highest producer (after soft swimbaits), there were a couple of occasions where a weightless fluke caught more breaking fish.

More notes on specific tackle successes and failures – including notes from the rest of our group -- coming soon. Stay tuned!