Señor Hudnall’s El Salto Work Trip
Fourth year Elite Series pro Derek Hudnall has amassed a solid list of sponsors during his career, and with that come certain fringe benefits, including tackle-testing opportunities with the crew from Wisconsin’s St. Croix Rods. In past years, they’ve gone to Florida, but this year the crew gathered at Anglers Inn Lake El Salto, just a week after Hanna and I were there. I was anxious to hear about his experience and to compare it to ours. He was gracious enough to spend some time on the phone with me as he drove across the wet southeast toward the St. Johns River in Florida for the season-opener.
HPFC: What was the purpose of your trip?
HUDNALL: We do an early year photo shoot every year for St. Croix. The last three years we’ve started out in South Florida. This year they decided to go to El Salto. They’ve done this in the past every fifth year or so. We’re releasing a new rod at the Classic this year, so we brought all of the rods down there for videography and content.
HPFC: Had you ever fished out of the country?
HUDNALL: No, I had not. That was the first time. I had never been to El Salto. I had of course always heard about it and always wanted to go do it. They’d had two hurricanes and the water was up like 20 feet high, and that’s desert country over there. They’re not used to that. That scattered the fish and made it a little tougher but we still caught some big ones and had a good time.
HPFC: How was the fishing?
HUDNALL: Per boat, we were probably catching about 30 a day, which is way off for that place, but we caught a couple of nines, a couple of eights, some sevens, and I think one guy caught a 10. Then our camera guy caught an 11 the day after I left.
HPFC: What was your personal best bass during the trip?
HUDNALL: That first one I caught on the first day, we didn’t put him on the scale but he was somewhere between 8 and 9. I caught some other sevens.
HPFC: What did you catch the big one on?
HUDNALL: I caught it on the Missile Baits Ike’s Mini Swim Jig.
HPFC: Was that generally your best lure for the quality fish?
HUDNALL: Yes, it was. And I’ll tell you something a lot of people don’t do that I like to do. The week before you saw how much water was in those bushes. I like to flip with a swim jig because of the shape of the head. It comes over those limbs better than a regular ball head round jig. I was flipping that jig there. We didn’t catch many fish in the bushes. Those fish were on the original shoreline, which was 15 or 20 feet off the bushes. There are more bushes out there and I was actually working that jig way out on the original shoreline. That’s what I caught most of my fish on, between that and a swimbait.
HPFC: What swimbait were you throwing?
HUDNALL: The Missile Baits Shockwave. That was my best lure for numbers, 100 percent. That was really for everybody.
HPFC: Was there something you wish you had brought but didn’t have with you?
HUDNALL: Several things. I wish I had brought an A-Rig. I wanted to kick myself in the butt for not bringing an A-Rig because that time of the year that’s a great way to catch bigger fish. We can’t fish them in Elite Series tournaments or Bassmaster events, but I’m sure I could have found one. One of the guides found one and gave it to our cameraman to throw and that’s what he caught his 11 on. None of us brought anything for a Carolina Rig, either.
HPFC: What would your advice be to someone heading down to El Salto for the first time?
HUDNALL: Trust your guides. Don’t be scared to fish instinctively. You have to there because there’s no electronics, which was actually nice. You’re having to really pay attention to the little subtleties on the banks to get an idea what’s underneath the surface. The best advice I can give is to read reports from there. We stayed at Anglers Inn International. Read the reports from there. See what the water’s doing. See what most of the people are catching their fish on at that time and get your tackle together based on that. The guides there are there for a reason. They know what they’re doing.
HPFC: Do you remember which guides you fished with?
HUDNALL: German and Lacho. German had been there like 20 years and he probably speaks better English than most of them.
HPFC: When you go on these trips to Florida or El Salto, does that get you jacked up for the start of the Elite Series season?
HUDNALL: Oh, absolutely, especially going to big fish fisheries like that. I was fortunate to also be able to fish that Bassmaster Redfish Cup. That was a really cool and fun break in the middle. Heck, yeah, it gets us pumped up. Two years ago we went to the St. Johns River before we started. We had to go way further south outside of the boundaries so it wouldn’t be off limits. Last year we did a photo shoot on the Harris Chain, which I’m pretty familiar with. We had a blast down there and caught some big ones. It’s awesome to fish that place when there’s no other boats on it. And then El Salto – you just can’t ask for anything better than that. It’s incredible. That’s God’s Country down there.
HPFC: I know that you probably can’t tell us about the rods that are coming out at the Classic, but if you had to choose from the existing St. Croix lineup – I know they have them down at the lodge – what are some actions or models that you’d use?
HUDNALL: Never bring a tricycle to a NASCAR race. There are big ones down there so don’t undersize yourself. That place down there, as you know, they have a whole lineup of rods. St. Croix just restocked them with like 200 rods this year. Try to focus on 7’ or longer, and medium-heavies or better. You can go there right now when the water’s up, and there’s a lot of water in the bushes. You’re going to have to drag fish out of cover. It’s a little bit easier when you’re offshore. Beef up your rod probably a little bit more than you’re used to – because you never know, any one of them can be a 13- or 14-pounder.
Here’s Derek’s video recap of the trip:
For some other St. Croix content, be sure to check out the following links:
Addendum: Apparently the “warm-up” session did him some good. Upon arriving in Florida, prior to the start of practice, Hudnall fished a local lake and caught a new personal best — 11.60 lbs.
