By Stan Fagerstrom

It doesn't pay to bug the Bear!

The "Bear" in this instance is the nickname of a likeable guy named Steve Babbidge. Steve, as some readers may know, has played a major role in focusing the world's bass fishing spotlight on Mexico's El Salto Lake. That fabulous lake in recent years has been kicking out lunker bass in numbers never seen before.
Steve runs an outfit called Hook Adventure Travel out of Fountain Valley, California. When he's not up to his ears booking trips for anglers from around the world, he heads for El Salto to do some bass fishing himself.

But those big bruisers down there south of the border did the same thing to Babbidge they've done to so many other anglers. Big bass, and El Salto is loaded with 'em, flat bug the hell out of the guys attempting to put them into their bass boats. And Bear Babbidge was no exception---at least that's how it was in the beginning.
But it doesn't pay to bug the bear!

This bass didn't get by with "Bugging the Bear." Steve Babbidge had to go overboard to make sure this lunker wound up in the boat.

Babbidge knows El Salto as well as the capable Mexican guides who take care of the anglers Steve books into Billy Chapman's Anglers Inn Lodge right on the lake' shore. He knows it because he's been there so often and fished it so much. And that's how he came to eventually pinpoint one particular El Salto hole where he hooked a beauty almost every time he went there.
Please note that I said "hooked." And the word "hooked" often has no relationship to the word "caught," especially where record size El Salto largemouth are concerned. That's especially true when those broad-shouldered brutes have access to heavy cover. That's what they had in the honey hole the Bear had pinpointed.
I suppose you're like I was before I had taken my own shot at El Salto bass. I'd heard and read about it, but the reality of things really didn't sink in until I got to fish it myself. I know now what the Bear was up against.
The hole where he had those big ones pinned down was over a cluster of submerged trees. Each time the guide eased Steve's boat up to that spot, the anticipation was almost more than this former Marine could handle. Those fish at El Salto will do that to you. Steve knew that if he got his jig or worm in there just right he'd feel that familiar heart-stopping "thunk" as a fish picked up.
Bear Babbidge has caught his share of fish. He's tangled with some of the biggest and best in both salt and fresh water. But those El Salto lunkers are something else. As those who have been there will tell you, when one of those big boogers feels the hook for the first time they take off and they go where they damn well please!
Steve (Bear) Babbidge knows what a big bass looks like. He has taken largemouth to 15-pounds at El Salto Lake in Mexico.

The Bear started out with 20-pound monofilament. One fish after another that Steve hooked over those underwater treetops popped that stuff like it was cheap cord string. Finally he gave up on monofilament and loaded his reels with one of those new 50-pound braided lines.
That 50-pound line didn't break, but neither did it stop the fish from getting down into the trees once they were hooked. It would take a line strong enough to hold the Queen Mary to stop one of those monsters on its first run. What that resulted in one time after another was the line tangling over a branch way down there below the surface and the fish eventually gaining its freedom. Steve is an easy-going sort of guy who's almost always "up." But those non-cooperative El Salto tackle-busting bigmouth were getting him "down."
But as I've pointed out before, it doesn't pay to bug the Bear!

In his youth Babbidge was a competitive swimmer and he was a good one. Maybe that's why he finally developed the plan that he did. Or it might have been the six years he spent in the Marine Corps. Whatever the reason, he did come up with a plan. The plan was simple enough. Steve made up his mind that the next fish he hooked was going to wind up in his boat if he had to go down there and get himself involved in some hand-to-fin combat in that underwater forest to make it happen.
On his next trip to El Salto Steve put on a pair of swimming trunks before leaving Anglers Inn Lodge. He also attached a pair of clippers to a lanyard that he hung around his neck. The Bear shared a boat that trip with Steven Battaglia, one of his associates in Hook Sportfishing Charters.
Battaglia made the first cast into the Bear's favorite hole. Whomp---fish on! It was a good one. In less time that it takes to tell about it the bass managed to tangle the line down there in the trees. Steven was hung up tight.

"No problem, pal," shouts the Bear. The he pulls down his goggles and jumps over the side of the boat. Now the Bear's not a bad looking man. But that bass must have figured the guy swimming up to him was big time ugly because as soon as it saw him coming it popped Battaglia's line and took off.
The Bear knew he had scared that fish. For one thing his approach had been too direct. He decided the next time one of those pot-bellied busters got the line tangled that he'd sneak up on it. That way he might avoid alarming the fish before he got the line free.
It didn't take long to test his new strategy. This time the Bear himself hooked the big one. Things started out the same way. Steve couldn't stop the fish even with his 50-pound line and in a matter of seconds it was down in the trees and had the line wrapped around a branch. The Bear had hung that big one off the bow of the boat. He handed his rod to his companion and scurried back to the stern. There he again donned his goggles and slipped into the water. Then he eased his way around to the front of the boat.
When he got to the bow, the Bear grabbed his 50-pound braided line and swam down to where the line was tangled. "I saw where it was wrapped around a limb," he recalls. "I had the line in both hands on either side of the wrap. I could feel the fish pounding away at the end of the line in my right hand. Then the lanyard of the clippers I had around my neck got tangled in my fishing line."

The braided line the Bear was using was 50-pound Power Pro. That line, as anyone who has used it will testify, is tough stuff and now Steve and that big bass are going at it in that hand-to-fin combat I mentioned before. For awhile there it looked like a whole handful of stinky stuff was about to hit the fan. Did the Bear have that bass or did that big bass have the Bear?
Finally, trying to keep himself from getting choked in the process, Babbidge managed to break the branch on which the line was tangled. The bass took off like a rocket. But then it turns and comes slashing back like a green torpedo fired from a nuclear submarine. Before Bear has time to blink that crazy largemouth smashes him right in the chest.

Bear still has a grip on his braided line and now he's got it in both hands. He yanks and instead of that bass going down again this time it goes up. And it winds up almost jumping into the net the guide up there in the boat has poised and waiting.

When the Bear finally gets back to the surface his companions are admiring a fish of more than 12-pounds. Meanwhile the Bear is wiping his face with a towel. It's not water he's getting rid of it, it's cold sweat. Steve and his pals shoot a few quick pictures of that dandy bass and then slide it back into the water. To this day the Bear swears that fish had a look in its eye that indicated it was spewing piscatorial cuss words all the time it was out of the water.

If you're fortunate enough to get to El Salto Lake, look around. If you spot a guy in swimming trunks with a pair of goggles on his head, chances are it will be the Bear. Since that first 12-pounder came along he has boated El Salto hawgs of more than 15-pounds. Those bass might have won some of the early skirmishes but they didn't win the war. And that's why I said what I said in the beginning.
It just doesn't pay to bug the Bear!