Pangrac's Picks for December El Salto Bass Fishing
Matt Pangrac is a media superman and a veteran tournament angler, but he'd never been to one of our favorite fisheries -- FAMOUS LAKE EL SALTO -- until recently. Our first trip there back in 2009 was in December, but since then we've yet to return at that time. We've been several times in November and January, but not December. That will likely change in the next few years, and we'll need to be as prepared as possible. Therefore, I decided to ask him for his thoughts on what worked well and what he wished he'd brought, especially since he had limited luggage space. Here's what he recommended and a little bit about his trip.
HPFC: What were the water conditions down at Lake El Salto?
Matt Pangrac: I have no idea what the water temperature was because we didn't have a graph, but I think it was a little bit higher than it normally is this time of the year, but it was definitely pre spawn. A lot of the bigs were staging to go up to spawn, caught a couple of females that had bloody tails and a lot of the better fish were on first pieces of cover, right outside of spawning pockets on the main lake.
HPFC: How many days did you fish on Lake El Salto? How was the fishing?
Matt Pangrac: We fished five full days. I have full data. Between two of us we caught 93 fish over 4 pounds and we put everything on the scale. If it was a 3-15 it didn't count. But of that, we had 60 fish in five days over 5 pounds. Which is weird because we only had 33 4-pounders -- you basically had twice as much chance to catch a five as you did a four. And then we had 19 over 6 pounds and the biggest went 9 pounds 4 ounces. Basically we broke it down like this: Literally we're on the water nine hours a day for five days, we averaged one 4-pounder every 30 minutes of fishing. So two 4-pounders an hour the entire time we were down there, that's crazy.
Then we kept track one day and we averaged 12 fish less than 4 pounds for every 4-pounder. We had two or three hour stretches where we literally couldn't go like 10 cranks without catching one. So you know that's probably 30 or 40, well probably more than that, doubles over the five days, so we were well over 150 fish days.
HPFC: What were your best lure colors, size and weight for the big fish?
Matt Pangrac: Keitch 5.8 inch FAT Swing Impact in Sexy Ayu or a Hologram Shad with a dipped chartreuse tail. I used a variety of different three-quarter ounce jig heads, open hook jig heads. Just slow reel.
Then a 4.8 inch Keitch on a half-ounce jig head on the shallower flats in either an Ayu or Green Pumpkin, which worked really well too. I think it imitated a tilapia with a chartreuse tail. And then a three-quarter ounce, Strike King Red Eye Shad in Chartreuse Baitfish or Chartreuse Sexy Shad and a half ounce Spro Aruku Shad in American Shad.
For topwater it was a Rebel Pop R P70 in a King Pin color. A saltwater Zara Spook in Okie Shad, chartreuse on the top, kind of like clear on the belly. Also used an Evergreen Shower Blows 125. It’s not the giant, giant but it's the big one in bone.
HPFC: I know that you caught some big fish. You might not think they're big.
Matt Pangrac: No, they were big (giggle).
HPFC: Okay, so you caught two giant ones. What time of the day did you catch them?
Matt Pangrac: I caught an 8-9 on a Saltwater Spook and then 9-4 on a 5.8 Keitech.
I caught one on the last cast of the day, around 5:30-6:00 and then the 9-4 came at like 3:30pm.
HPFC: How was the top water bite throughout the day?
Matt Pangrac: You could catch them on topwater all day, you just had to slow down. You catch so many on the swimbait, but if it just looked like perfect topwater conditions then you'd topwater during the day. But usually, we would topwater fish until about 8am and then pick it up again around 5pm.
HPFC: I used to laugh because Pete would go down to the lake with 300 different baits, 17 different colors and many different sizes of the same bait, even though you’d eventually settle on just a few of them. I now understand that what the first rule of fishing is that they’ll be eating whatever you didn’t bring. So now I I pack one or two less outfits to get extra tackle down there. Did other lures work as well, or you didn't even think of picking them up?
Matt Pangrac: You could catch them on the flats on every cast on a ¾ or 1 ounce football head with a with a big creature hog full sized trailer, like five and a half, six inches long in green pumpkin. They were all smaller fish, and you could also catch them dragging a Carolina Rig. I also took an Alabama Rig down. Just for fun, I don't really enjoy throwing it, but I made eight casts with it, and I caught 10 fish. Then I was like, “that was fun,” and put it down.
I would say there are other baits I would definitely throw in the mix, -- like the Spro KGB Chad Shad Glide Bait in a bone color. When we got around the trees, especially early when the fish were up, earlier in the morning, we had some really big ones eat that thing. I think we caught three over 6 on that and probably threw if for a couple hours each day.
HPFC: Everybody always, always, always asks about line. What kind of line did you use what might you do differently next time?
Matt Pangrac: I took four spools of different Sunline. A spool of Sunline Sniper 18-pound test, that's what I threw the trap on. Those fish are not line shy. And when you're catching so many you want to be able to winch the 3-pounders back to the boat and then there's also a lot of timber. So when you hook fish on a Rat-L-Trap, you want to be able to move them so I would throw it on 18.
Then for the 4.8 Keitech I threw that on 20 and then pretty much anything else I did I threw on 20.
I would throw the 5.8 Keitech on the three-quarter ounce jig head on 22-pound Sunline Shooter.
It was basically 18, 20 and 22 and you could kind of mix in between the 20 and the 22 but you don't need to take a bunch there.
Then on my top water rod I wanted to be able to make long casts so I just put 30 pound Sunline Xplasma Asegai. It has a slick coating on it, casts really well. doesn't bind in the reel and I caught the 8-9 on topwater, numerous six and a halves and a lot of those fish are right next to the tree so you need that braid to just be able to pull them out.
HPFC: Was it physically tiring?
Matt Pangrac: It was wild, have never seen anything like it like. I thought I was literally gonna have to get ligament surgery on my pinky when I got back, it was so jacked up, I was holding the reel, like palming it I couldn't even set the hook by the time I was done. It hurts so bad. Like it was just shooting up. And I fish like a lot, like a lot a lot.
HPFC: And these fish are stronger than normal fish, am I right?
Matt Pangrac: Yeah, I thought it was funny because a two and a half pounder would fight really good, I mean fight really good. But then you realize that you're throwing it on 22-pound test on a 7’6” extra-heavy rod and a 300-sized reel and it's a six inch bait. So you're like, okay, if you were doing that normally on a 7’2” with 15-pound test, they just be peeling drag.
HPFC: Now that you’ve been home a couple of days, do you have any thoughts about going back? If so, what would you do differently?
Matt Pangrac: Definitely take fishing gloves like the AFTCO sun gloves because I have a permanent, knot/callous/open blister/sore on the inside of two of my fingers from trying to hold the reel so the sun gloves are a must just because you have so much frickin’ pressure on your hands and stuff the whole time.
Make sure you have a hook sharpener. A hook sharpener’s key. I know Pete's done a bunch of stuff on that. But like, I was so glad I brought a hook sharpener. I literally used the same four jig heads the entire time and just touched up the hooks. And then upgrade all of the hardware on your top waters. I had to spend so much time at night, I would take two or three baits up and then put like 2x Gamakatsu treble hooks and upsize them one. I wish I'd gone with bigger split rings, I had like three or four fish pull split rings off of the bait, which I have never had happen before. Instead of taking more I would take my topwater lures that were beefed up, if that makes sense.
HPFC: Can you provide advice for someone who is on the fence about going?
Matt Pangrac: The thing about fishing is you never know what you're gonna get. So you could go down there, you could catch 10 a day, you could go down there, and you could catch 150 a day. I think what you're paying for is the opportunity to have the trip of a lifetime. And if it happens, it's something that's really special, but you have a 0% chance of it happening sitting at home.
HPFC: Safety, everybody always asks about safety.
Matt Pangrac: It reminded me of a mixture between Colorado and Ohio. And at no point in time, even when vehicles with military people with AK47’s were driving past us, did I ever feel like I was in danger. I mean, these lodges know that one incident and they're totally screwed.
They go above and beyond to make sure you are taken care of and then once you're there, you're in a lodge like you have no idea what the outside world is. And you're on the lake half the day and you're either drinking a margarita or sleeping the other half of the day. So I mean, if you want to go into town and get into trouble, I'm sure you could find it, but I felt 100% safe the entire time.
HPFC: Final words.
Matt Pangrac: I think it's important to say, “Make it your trip.” I don't know how it is in other boats, they were six in our group, so we had we got to know three guides. One guide took off every single fish. I like to frickin handle my fish and I don't need a guy to take off a 2-pounder. Now, I get it, you're in Mexico in the middle of nowhere, you don't want a guy with three saltwater hooks spoon jacking with 2-pounders because that's a good way to end up with a hook in your hand. But I mean, I liked handling all the fish.
Lastly, it was way, way prettier than I expected. No one ever says anything about the scenery and that it's in the mountains and how peaceful it is. I said in one of my Instagram posts, the last time I had that vibe was in Alaska. I thought it would be like Amistad or Falcon and honestly. Amistad was pretty but it's a different like desert pretty. This is really cool. There's jackrabbits and crazy ass looking raccoons and donkeys and wild horses and cows. There's just all sorts of stuff around. The scenery is really, really nice.
One more thing, I would say to bring some Pepto Bismol. I got a mouthful of water one day and I was out for like 12 hours. I was in the shower and used the water to rinse my mouth out and I immediately went, “crap.: Thankfully, one of the guys there had some Imodium. And then the next morning I was golden.
If you want to book a trip for next December or any other time during the year, please email me or call me 703-932-6299.
