Back in 2009, in anticipation of my 40th birthday, my wife set up a dream trip to Lake El Salto in Mexico. I’d peppered her with hints since we’d met six years earlier, but I was in disbelief that I’d finally be headed to the land of las lobinas grandes. Now, 15 years later, I think my 20 trips to that “once in a lifetime” destination speak for themselves, but I really believe that El Salto is a location that every serious angler needs to visit.
Lake El Salto Profile
| Closest Airport | Mazatlan, Mexico (MZT) |
| Seasons | October through July |
| Weather | Because the lake is near the coast and the Sierra Madre mountains, it never gets oppressively hot. At the coldest, it might get down to 50 and then shoot up to 75 or 80 during the day. At the warmest, it’ll be in the 80s all day. Fortunately, in the warmer months a breeze kicks up reliably around 11am every day, making the air tolerable and positioning the fish |
| Target Species | Florida strain largemouth bass |
| Forage Species | Tilapia, shad, mojarra |
| Lake Size | Approximately 25,000 acres at full pool, shrinks substantially from January through June |
| Age of the Lake | The Rio Elota was dammed in 1986, creating the lake |
| Lake Record | Depending on who you believe, anywhere from 16 to 19 pounds; double digits show up every season of every year |
| Cover | Various types of standing timber and bushes, along with manmade cover like house foundations and even cemeteries. The lake is also a structure fisherman’s dream, with long tapering points, rocky bluffs, isolated humps, and creek channels galore |
From the time it opened over 30 years ago, magazines like Bassmaster have touted El Salto as a bass fishing Disneyland. Most of the big name pros, from KVD to Ike to Skeet, have fished and filmed there. Tackle companies use it as the testing ground for new gear. But here are my reasons why you need to fish there:
El Salto: More Bang for the Buck
I know that everyone has a different budget and a different tolerance for expense, but a trip to El Salto is not overwhelmingly expensive.
First of all, once you’re at one of the major lodges, like Anglers Inn, everything except gratuities is included, so it’s not like you can’t prepare for it. You probably already own all of the tackle you’ll need, although I’m pretty sure you’ll end up buying more for the trip anyway.
Secondly, have you seen the prices guys pay to go offshore fishing, even domestically? It’s several times more than this trip, and I can promise you that there is no group that will treat you better than the guides and lodge staff at a lake such as this.
Perhaps most important is the value of the trip. You can probably spend less to fish three or four days at Okeechobee, or Rayburn, or Clear Lake, but on a dollar-per-8-pounder basis, no place beats El Salto. It’s fishing, so I’m not going to guarantee you a giant or several giants, but you’ll definitely be around them every day.
El Salto Can Make You a Better Angler
If you just want to go to El Salto and whack on fish after fish after fish and drink cold Pacificos and margaritas, that’s your prerogative, but having all of those shots at hard-fighting quality bass is a huge opportunity for the recreational and tournament angler alike.
Are you looking to learn a particular technique? Test out a particular piece of gear? Work on your casting? This is the place to do it. The bass grow big, and they can grow upwards of 2 pounds in their first year, so they’re hungry and mean and willing to use any trick in the book to get free and get back to their business.
I love going in May and June when the water is at its lowest and I can crank offshore with a Strike King 10XD, something I never get to do on my home waters: the shallow, grass-filled Potomac. It’s also where I’ve gotten the best freshwater topwater strikes of my life, other than the Amazon, on lures like a Lobina Rio Rico and a Whopper Plopper 130. It’s where my wife caught her first Alabama Rig fish – and her first double.
Those water fluctuations are key, too. The lake can shift 40 feet in the course of a year. I was once there in October when the water was going over the spillway and we were fishing far back in the woods, and I have been there on a couple of summertime trips when the lake was effectively reduced to the river channel.
Those changes are important, because they reflect a predictable cycle, and one that has kept the lake healthy over the years. As the water grows down, terrestrial vegetation grows up, and when the lake gets inundated by major August and September storms, the life cycle starts anew. In addition to baitfish like shad and mojarra, El Salto is known for it’s ample population of fast-growing and oft-breeding tilapia. They keep the fish fat and moving.
Notably, El Salto’s yearly cycles are part of what have kept the lake so strong four decades after its impoundment. Other Mexican lakes have become hot for a while and then gone stagnant. Others have become numbers factories, not that there’s anything wrong with that, just that many anglers who travel across the border aim for a PB. Still others have gone dry, or become inaccessible.
El Salto remains a perfect model of management involving stakeholders to include the tilapia cooperative and local farmers who depend upon it for irrigation needs. The ultimate beneficiaries are gringos like me who want to be spoiled and come home with sore thumbs.
Easy Living
About those sore thumbs I mentioned; you don’t need to come home with those if you don’t want to. Again, the service at lodges like Anglers Inn is above and beyond what you’d experience at any five-star resort. You don’t need to touch a bag, tie a knot, or land a fish the entire trip if you don’t want to; the guides will retie your lures while you’re taking a siesta, and they’re masters of getting even the most deeply hung crankbait out of a seemingly impenetrable underwater hazard. The service is so good that I once got up in the middle of the night, went to the bar area, and started to head behind the bar to grab a soft drink. Sammy, the camp manager, came out of nowhere, vaulted the bar, and opened the cooler before I could get there. It’s that good, and it’s non-stop.
It’s also not that hard to get there. There are direct flights from major hubs like Dallas and Phoenix, and once on the ground, you’ll be whisked away in an air-conditioned van with a cooler full of Bebidas to the lake. It’s less than two hours by major highway.
And trust me, no matter how many days you go there for, you’ll want one more, or several “one mores.” Book for as long as you can.
Gear: Packing for El Salto Is Simple
Anglers Inn provides St. Croix rods free of charge to their guests. Bring your own reels spooled with 17- to 20-pound test fluorocarbon or mono, or 30- to 65-pound braid. Going down, we’ve never had problems putting them in our carry-on bags, but in recent years, Mexican customs has become more strict, and I strongly suggest putting them in your checked bag for the trip home. Even reels without line have become a point of contention, so don’t risk it.
As for tackle, I store two oversized tackle bags and a rod tube down at the lake (I message ahead of time and they have them waiting at my room when I arrive), yet somehow I always manage to bring more and more tackle. Some of it eventually works its way into the rotation, but others prove to be fruitless larks. Your choices lure choices will vary by the season and the conditions, but beyond bringing plenty of terminal tackle, here are my suggestions for must-have items.
This is just a basic list, but don’t forget: the lodge does your laundry every day. So, you can leave some clothes at home and pack more tackle. You may not use it, but you’ll have what you need when Mexican giants put on the feed bag.
El Salto Recommended Tackle List
Topwaters:
- Lobina Rio Rico popper (shad colors)
- Whopper Plopper 130 (white or black)
Crankbaits:
- Bomber Fat Free Shad (citrus shad – has been the gold standard for decades)
- Strike King 6XD and 10XD
- Squarebills (chart/black or sexy shad)
- 1/2-ounce Lipless Crankbaits (I like the Berkley Warpig in blue/chrome)
Soft Plastics:
- 10-inch Berkley PowerBait Power Worm (black/blue)
- 6- to 7-inch Yamamoto Senkos (watermelon or green pumpkin)
- 8-inch lizards (watermelon red)
- Zoom Super Fluke (white)
Jigs:
- 1/2-ounce flipping jig (black and blue)
- 1/4-ounce football jig
- 1/2-ounce vibrating jig (shad colors)
All of you swimbaiters will have your “secret” special toy you want to bring, but don’t forget hollow bellies like the Basstrix or top hook models like the venerable Storm Wildeye in 5- and 6-inch sizes. They’re inexpensive and they’re catchers.
