Two patterns have been producing the best action lately. Anglers fishing a variety of plastic baits along the shore are catching the most fish. Clients who throw deep diving crankbaits are taking the largest bass.
Brett Ware and some of his friends were among our recent guests. Brett is with Ambush Lures. Brett’s party got some nice fish. Kyle Burch boated a 12-pounder came off of our new Pot Bell'EE Deep Diver Crankbiat in around 15 ft. of water. Charlie Ware, Bretts father, caught a 10-pounder using a new Ambush Lures bait called the Pop & Buzz. It’s a topwater plug that has the action of a Spook, but that also has a small buzz blade in its belly. Brett says “The topwater bite was good early in the morning and the Ambush Buzz-a-Long was a blast fishing for about the first hour of fishing. One moring I pulled in an 8 lb, 6 lb, and two 5 lb bass in about 30 minutes. There's nothing like big bass blowing up on topwater lures. The Ambush Stealth Diver worked well fishing on the flats and brighter chartruse colors produced well.”
Frank Ceriello says his recent visit wound up being another fantastic trip. “I cast a 4-inch swimbait into deep water,” Frank says. “I let it fall to the bottom and then started my retrieve. Something hit it like a ton of bricks! I wound up catching an
11.7 pounder and fulfilled a lifelong dream. Alex Burka, my fishing partner, also boated some nice bass.”
Bruce Fritz and Tony Mandile were other early March Anglers Inn guests. “Our recent trip was more challenging than our visit last year,” Bruce says. “But even when it’s slow, El Salto Lake is still fantastic. We caught more than 60 fish during our stay, mostly on spinnerbaits, Senkos, swimbaits and worms. My largest fish was a 9-pounder. While the fishing fell a little short of typical El Salto standards, the hospitality, accommodations and service at Anglers Inn certainly did not. Thank you once more for an unforgettable fishing experience.”
Tony Mandile says he has made several trips to El Salto. “The fishing was tough this trip,” Tony says, “but even a slow fishing trip to El Salto is better than any stateside fishing I’ve experienced. We caught our largest fish on deep diving crankbaits. Most of our smaller fish were caught on Yum Dingers and Yum Craw Papis or 10-inch watermelon colored worms.”
Sidney Trice and Ted St.Pierre really hammered the lunkers one afternoon during their recent stay. “We got on an afternoon pattern where we threw crankbaits over a flat that dropped off to 25-feet,” Sid says. “Finding that pattern led to the best bass fishing day I’ve ever had and I’m 71 and I’ve been fishing all my life.
“That one afternoon we boated bass of 13.9, 11.6, 10.8, 10.3, 8.2, 8.1 and 8-pounds. We got all of them on crankbaits while others were complaining fish weren’t hitting their plastic baits. This was my seventh trip to Anglers Inn on El Salto Lake. The service, food and fishing just gets better and better.”
As we’ve reporting ever since the current season started, this has been an unusual period at El Salto Lake. Sometimes the fishing has been spotty. There’s really no mystery why that’s happened. It’s all related to the weather.
If you were a guest here at the tag end of last year’s season you know El Salto was extremely low. We estimated that the lake was only 34 per cent of being at full pool levels. Then in mid-September Hurricane Lane swept through this region. The lake rose 25-feet almost overnight. The result was that the lake’s bass population was scattered all over the place.
