RIP Lacho

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Jul 15

Hanna Robbins fishing with guide Lacho at Lake El Salto

We were saddened to hear that longtime Anglers Inn Lake El Salto guide Lacho Anaya passed away this week. We’d fished with him on several occasions and he was an integral part of the exceptional guiding crew at the lake.

Indeed, Lacho was one of the guides we recommended most frequently for hard-charging tournament types and serious anglers who wanted to work hard to pattern giants. He wasn’t shy about telling you what he thought or your tackle, your casting or your presentations, and he was almost always correct to do so. He made even good anglers better and helped clients to get the most out of their trips to Lake El Salto.

But he wasn’t just a taskmaster. He worked hard and was a lot of fun in the boat, and while he didn’t talk a ton, when he did he usually had something pithy to say. One that I recall is that on tough days if you finally caught a small fish he’d deadpan, “Better than nothing.” Meanwhile, if you made a perfect cast and got rewarded with a violent strike, he’d simply comment, “As seen on TV.”

Lake El Salto guide Lacho with his rock lure retriever

The first time we met him was on our second trip to El Salto, which took place in May of 2013. He was assigned to guide our friend Kevin Hawk and put Kevin on a ton of big fish all week, including a true 10-pounder. What was more memorable, however, was his lure retrieval efforts. Fearing that he’d lose a lot of crankbaits, Kevin had toted a sawed-off baitcasting rod and an old reel spooled with 100-pound braid down to Mexico. At the end of the line was some sort of complicated plug knocker. The first time he got hung up, he dropped the retriever down, worked with it for a while, and deemed the lure unrecoverable. Meanwhile, Lacho tied a small rock to a piece of monofilament, looped it to Kevin’s line, dropped it down and with one simple flick the lure was free. Later he graduated to a spark plug and then a Master Lock (see below), but he was still more efficient with his setup than even a Forrest Wood Cup champ.

We will miss his sense of humor, his work ethic, and the days on the water that we’ll always remember.