Mexico Fall 2016 Update

[Editor: this article first appeared on www.ronsfishingblog and may only be used by permission of Ron Speed Jr.]

LAKE HUITES IS BACK WITH A FURY!!!

Yes….I said LAKE HUITES! The same Lake Huites that opened in 1997 and my father and his partner started the first fishing lodge on that lake! My father is retired now (since 2012) but his former partner and I have since teamed up in Mexico. For the past couple of years, my partner (from Sinaloa, Mex) has been giving me reports of great fishing at Huites. He’s asked me many times to come check the fishing and assured me I would not be disappointed. Well, with already having 3 of the best bass lakes in the world in Comedero, El Salto and Picachos, I just couldn’t see myself considering adding a 4th lake. Time (lack thereof) was the biggest factor. Well, last winter I finally decided a checkout trip to Huites was imminent. The only question would be when I could break away and go check Huites? More on that in a few….

Backing up a “few years” here….the lake opened in 1997. My father donated pure strain Florida brood bass to the Sinaloa State Fish Hatchery in Culiacan in the late 80’s and again in the early 90’s. The hatch/fingerling bass from these Florida strain broods at the hatchery were to be stocked in lakes of my father’s choosing. For the first few years, those fingerlings went into Lake Comedero…and we all know what happened at that lake. Turned it into one of the best trophy bass lakes in the world! Then the next few years, my father designated those fingerlings to be stocked into Lake Huites…from 1993 – 1996. Again, these were ALL pure strain Florida bass and to our knowledge, there were never any northern/native bass stocked into Huites. By the time my father opened his lodge on Huites in 1997, the very first lodge on the lake, we were already catching bass up to 8 and 9 pounds. By the second year, one of our customers caught the first 10 pound bass. Those first couple of years our customers averaged well over 100 bass per day, per boat and lots of 4 – 6 pound bass. By the third year, we noticed a drop in the overall size of the bass but the numbers were still great….over a 100 per boat, per day…but the average size was around 1.5 – 2.5 pounds. My father decided to call upon an old friend and former employee from Stigler, Oklahoma…Don Arnett. Don had worked for my father and me in the early years at Comedero. His primary job was to locate “bigger” fish for our customers. Don is one of the best deep water anglers I’ve ever known or fished with in a boat. Don drove to Huites pulling his boat that third season. He brought his fishing buddy Larry Peck (OK). I was at the lodge getting ready for a group to arrive. After the first morning of fishing, Don and Larry arrived back at the lodge for lunch. I asked Don, “Well, did you find them?” He replied, “Yes sir…but you’re not going to be happy” …I then replied, “Why is that?” …Don replied, “They’re suspended and very deep!” I then told Don I wanted him to show me that afternoon the pattern of where these bigger fish were hanging out. So that afternoon he had me tie on one super deep diving crankbait and one 3/4 oz Okiebug spinnerbait. Don took me to a deep water submerged island not far from the mouth of the “Chinipas” river. He showed me on his sonar this underwater island…that at the time was around 50 – 60 feet deep with a lot of trees. The tops of the trees were approximately 30′ deep. Those big bass were suspended in the tops of the trees….and LOTS of them! Don instructed me to throw my big spinnerbait past the trees and bring it slowly through the tops…then once in the tops, KILL IT. Just let it fall. Well, it didn’t take much falling before a biggun freight trained that spinnerbait! After a nice battle with the brute, I landed her and she weighed a little over 8 lbs. We continued fishing this same pattern all afternoon…moving from one island or ridge to another that had these trees and suspended bass. It’s been so long ago that I honestly cannot remember how many big bass we caught that afternoon but I do remember it was MUCHOS, MUCHOS AND MUCHOS!!! I also remember the largest weighing a little over 10 lbs but the number of 7 – 9 pounders were astonishing.

So now came the question of why these bigger bass were suspended in deep water? Why were these big bass not relating to shoreline and the shallows? The water temperature on the surface wasn’t too warm or hot. There were plenty of bait fish in the shallows…and plenty of small bass in the shallows. Just no sign of quality bass in the shallows. Well, it didn’t take my father long to figure it out. What had changed since those first couple of years when there were a lot of bigger bass being caught? Water level dropping. That’s what changed. The lake went from being pulled 2″ – 4″ per 24 hours to 8″ – 10″ and even at times 12″ per 24 hours. THAT will cause those bigger, older and wiser bass to migrate away from the shoreline and shallow water. Thus causing them to set up in deeper water and suspend. My father rode it out for the next few years in hopes that the drastic pull of the water to refill Lakes Hildalgo and Dominguez would return to the “norm” of 2″ – 4″…but it didn’t and he finally gave up on Huites.

Now fast forward to the last couple of years and my partner in Mexico informing of the return of great fishing and lots of big bass in Huites as well as no more drastic pulling of water out of Huites. He also informed me that after the original camp that he and my father put in back in 97′ had burned down, he built a new facility a few years ago that is 5-star quality! After hearing about the great fishing and new lodge, I finally decided a checkout trip to Huites was in order. I called my good friends Terry Oldham (Oldham Lures) and Steve “Big O” Parks (Rage Tail) to accompany me to Huites in April. I had not been to Huites in 12 years and really didn’t know what to expect. The first thing I noticed during the ride from Los Mochis to Huites that had changed was the road into the lake from Choix. Years ago it was a very rough “beat you to death” dirt road….now it’s fully paved right up to the lodge! What was once a 1 hour bumpy ride from Choix to Huites is NOW a 20 minute smooth comfortable ride. So that was nice and a HUGE plus!

We arrived at the new lodge, “La Estancia Huites Bass Club” in the afternoon and were greeted by the entire staff with open arms and cold frozen margaritas! They appeared to be genuinely ecstatic that we had chosen to pay a visit. The manager, Efrain, showed us around the lodge and to say I was impressed is an understatement. My partner had rebuilt this lodge to the 5-star quality he claimed. It’s in the same location with the same breathtaking view of the main lake but this was a first class resort! The flower gardens, the indoor/outdoor dining facility plus the all indoor dining facility, the extra large Jacuzzi with a view of the lake….it was just AMAZING! Efrain then showed us to our rooms and once again, I was blown away! These rooms compare to the 5-star rooms at El Cid in Mazatlan…two big beds, air conditioning that will freeze you out, huge shower and bathrooms…big front porch with a beautiful breathtaking view of the lake. Again….just absolutely blown away!

Now came the all important question to Efrain….When can we go fishing??? Efrain informed us that even though there was approximately one hour of daylight left, the guides were ready if we wanted to go wet a hook. Big O had come down with a nasty upper respiratory bug/virus and opted to stay at the lodge and get some rest. Little did Oldham and I know that we were next for that nasty bug…but in the meantime, we headed out to see what we could hook into in that last hour of daylight. Oldham and his guide went one direction, my guide and I went another. As we were riding in the boat to our first fishing location, I could not help but notice the once brushy lake of Huites, was no longer brushy. In fact, I couldn’t see any visible brush at all. Well, I guess that means I won’t have to worry about staying hung up…or need heavy braid line. Anyway, my guide Pedro took me to a point not far from where we took off from and told me, “Spinnerbait muy bueno aqui”….ahhh, ok…twist my arm, Pedro.

If you’ve read my updates in the past, you’ll know how much I love fishing spinnerbaits! It just so happened that I already had two Oldham 3/4 oz spinnerbaits tied on! The sun was already down below the mountains and dark shadows dominated the point I was about to fish. A nice stiff 20 mph breeze was also blowing in my face. My first cast was….ahem…a bird nest! Yeah, even Ron Jr gets bird nests from time to time. My second cast came up about 10′ short of my target due to that stiff breeze, but didn’t matter. I felt a solid “THUMP” that threw slack in my line. I set the hook and FISH ON! It wasn’t a monster but it wasn’t a dink either. I didn’t bother to weigh the bass as I guessed it at about 4 – 4 1/2 lbs. A nice way to start the trip though! I made a few more cast to the point and caught one more bass of about 2 lbs. Then Pedro got tired of fighting the stiff breeze and moved us around the point and back into a “pocket” just out of the wind. He told me to throw out toward the middle of that pocket as there was a little shelf out there about 10′ deep on top. I threw the spinner…of course and in 5 casts, I landed 5 bass…largest was a little over 6 lbs and the rest were about 2 – 3 lbs. I then got on the radio and called to Oldham to see how he was doing? He didn’t answer. Hmmm…he can’t be that far from me. It was getting pretty dark and I decided to go find him in case he was having motor or mechanical problems. We found him about a half mile away. Fishing…catching…and this is why he refused to answer the call on the radio! We spent a few minutes comparing what we had done in this short “teaser” of an afternoon but decided that there’s no doubt this lake is full of bass and if this is any indication of what’s in store, we’re going to WRECK’EM over the next few days!

That night back at the lodge, Big O didn’t come to dinner as he was still very sick with a high fever. Efrain sent one of the staff workers to Choix to get some antibiotics for Big O as well as Oldham and me…because we knew there was a pretty good chance we were next. Well sure enough, the next morning at breakfast, Oldham and I both were coughing our heads off…but not enough to keep us from going fishing. Big O was at breakfast and we filled him in on what we had done in the short fishing session the afternoon before. So that morning, Big O and I fished together and Oldham fished alone with his guide. Both boats headed to the Chinipas river…a beautiful tributary with high canyon walls. As we rode way up the Chinipas and to where the train tracks/trestle crosses the river, it brought back special memories from those years of fishing Huites. This lake is right there with Comedero in terms of beautiful scenery! That train track runs from Copper Canyon and if there at the trestle at the right hour, one can see the train crossing on the trestle. Big O and I started fishing right at that trestle. Actually, we weren’t fishing but rather “looking”…anyone that’s fished with Big O knows he does more looking (at sonar) and inspecting things when fishing new water, before he ever wets a hook. Not long after we made our way past the trestle, he found a BIG WAD of some kind of fish that was down about 15′ – 17’…so FINALLY we were going to get to wet a hook! After about 20 minutes of fishing that “wad” of whatever it was and no bite, Big O decided to tie on a big jigging spoon. First drop produced a bite…a BIG tilapia! Now we knew what that was all about. We kept fishing up the edge of this shelf on the main river but still no bass bites. It wasn’t long before Big O found another school of fish…this time in about 10′ – 12′. Thinking it might be another school of Tilapia, he kept with the jigging spoon. Another big THUMP….and this was no Tilapia! The bass shot out of the water like a missile…and it wasn’t small either! After landing this beautiful toad, Big O put it on the scale…8 POUNDS! Okay, that was a nice way to break the ice on the morning fishing. We fished a couple of hours in the Chinipas trying to establish a pattern but without much luck. I really wanted to go back to the main lake outside the Chinipas where I had great success the afternoon prior. Finally we made our way out of the Chinipas and found Oldham on the main point at the mouth. We eased up to him on the troller and asked if he had found some good bass or a pattern? He chuckled and said, “Oh yeah…I found them!” He then proceeded to tell us how many big bass he had caught as well as lost by flipping/pitching the steep bluff canyon walls in the Chinipas! He had caught 5’s, 6’s, 7’s and one of 8 lbs. He said he had also lost as many as he had landed but couldn’t figure out why? He said he wasn’t getting a good hook set for whatever reason and blamed it on the monofilament line he was using…and would later change to braid which doesn’t have any give or stretch. Still he had hooked enough bass and quality bass to know this lake is full of them!

That afternoon we decided to focus on another area of the lake…from the mouth of the Chinipas toward the dam. Oldham worked one side, Big O and I worked the other side. As always with these lakes in western Mexico, that afternoon breeze coming off the Pacific can get pretty stiff at times. This was one of those afternoons. So Big O and I headed back into a bay with a little more wind break. Still, there was a little breeze and Big O pointed the nose of the boat into that breeze and held us on a ride coming off a small island. Fishing from the back of the boat, I could not get a good shot at the ridge like Big O…and the water I could fish was flat and shallow and HOT. Just not good for holding bass. So I just sat back there and watched him fish…and watched and watched and watched. Until finally, bored out of my mind, I decided to toss my 3/4 oz Oldham jig…yes, JIG…up on that flat shallow shelf coming off that island. Probably 4 or 5 feet of water. As soon as my jig hit the water, my line started running sideways! I’m thinking dink bass here…small, very small. Only because the bass was running sideways with a lot of slack in the line. Therefore I haven’t felt the weight of this fish…..yet. I set the hook a second time and when I did, this MONSTER blew out of the water, shook her giant head 3 or 4 times and my jig went flying over my head, over the other side of the boat and she swam away. Big O and I both got a look at this beast. Big O said, “OMG, THAT BASS WAS EASILY DOUBLE DIGITS!”….I had to agree. It was sure enough BIG! Shocker…Ron Jr loses another big bass in Mexico. [extreme sarcasm here]. If you’ve kept up with my previous updates, I’m real professional at losing the bigguns! I think I’ve mastered the art of losing big fish! Anyway, that did answer one question we had when we decided to go check the fishing in Huites. Does it have big bass and 10 lbs bass in it? Answer: ABSOLUTELY!!!! We continued fishing toward the dam that afternoon but weren’t overly impressed with the fishing or the water color. It definitely had a “stained” look about it but we still caught a dozen or so until about 4 pm. We decided we wouldn’t proceed any further with this area of the lake and headed back to the Chinipas for the final two hours of fishing. Starting on the left bank going into the Chinipas, the shade was already along the steep bluffs. We both opted for the big Oldham spinnerbait. It didn’t take long before the first bass hammered my spinnerbait…a 5 pounder! Then Big O and I decided the best way to fish those bluffs with spinnerbaits was to “parallel” fish…and it was the right call. We absolutely wrecked 4 and 5 pound bass paralleling those ledges along those steep bluff walls. The shad had the bass pulled up on ledges down about 5′ – 8’…and I remembered this pattern being best in the afternoon on this lake (and particularly the Chinipas) from 15 – 20 years ago! We caught bass until we literally couldn’t lift our arms! About 15 minutes before dark, we came up on Oldham. He was also fishing the bluff walls and ledges but with jig….and he was hammering them as well. He actually had more bass over 5 lbs than we did to include one of 8.8 lbs. Great, great afternoon of fishing!

The next morning, I went with Oldham….Big O went fishing by himself. Big O said he wanted to work toward the dam again and give it another chance since we didn’t do that well the afternoon before. Oldham and I fished the main lake from the lodge up the Fuerte about 5 miles and had a solid (not great) morning. We hooked up with Big O at noon and he said he didn’t do good at all toward the dam and was convinced that water was just “off”…just not good. So that afternoon Big O decided to travel far far up the Fuerte river. Maybe 15 – 20 miles??? Boy did he make the right call as he hit the mother load! He landed 134 bass (alone) just that afternoon way up the Fuerte river and had one of 9 lbs and numerous 6 – 8 lbs! The rest averaged 3 – 5 lbs and lots of them! Oldham and I went back to the Chinipas and had similar results as the previous afternoon…lots of 4 and 5 lbs bass but nothing huge. That night, after Big O informed us of what he found way up the Fuerte, we couldn’t wait to go experience it for ourselves. One small problem though…that nasty bug/virus that Big O had suffered from, was hitting me square between the eyes. I woke up with a 103 degree fever and as much as I wanted to go yank on some big bass up the Fuerte, I just couldn’t conjure up the energy. So I stayed back at the lodge and tried to get the fever down. About 10 am, I woke up and couldn’t stand it any more. I still felt horrible but by gosh, I was going…and that was THAT! I told my guide to take me up the Fuerte and don’t stop until we see Oldham and Big O. After almost 15 miles of running up the Fuerte, we found them….yanking on some bigguns! Big O already had some 7’s and quite a few 5’s and 6’s. I went across to the other side of the river and found some laydowns and stickups along the shore. I got on the trolling motor and started slow rolling a spinnerbait. In 21 casts with that spinnerbait, I landed 18 bass! Nothing giant as most were in the 3 lbs range but I did land one of 5 lbs. The sun was up fairly high by this time and not much breeze. Therefore I decided to slow it down and go more vertical. I picked up my rod that had a Missile Bait D-Stroyer tied on. A fantastic creature/plastic lure I started fishing two years ago! I flipped/pitched those laydowns and stickups for the next 30 minutes or until time to head back to lodge for lunch. I proceed to land bass of 4 and 5 lbs but also had 1 – 7 lbs and 1 – 8 lbs, 12 oz! FUN! FUN! FUN!

The last day I just couldn’t go fishing. Bronchitis had set in and just enough fever to zap me of any energy. However, Oldham and Big O went back out and just wrecked them. Mostly 3 – 5 pound bass. The questions had already been answered and they were just fun fishing. We had proven that this lake not only has A LOT of bass in it but it also has some big bass too! What was so amazing or rather mind boggling to me is that we were the only boat on this lake during our entire time there. It was like a “ghost lake”….we had it ALL to ourselves! It may be different at other times or in the future but during our 3 1/2 days there, we had it all to ourselves.

I decided to wait on making a firm decision to start fishing this great lake again. I wanted more time to think it over and possibly make a return trip this fall to check the fishing again. However, it’s turned out that wasn’t necessary. My partner informed me last week that HIS first group of the season was arriving last Thursday and would send me a report after they completed their 3 days of fishing. This is the report he sent to me two days ago…

Traxel family ( 6 anglers )

• Bass landed 7 lbs and larger (8): 12.5 lbs, 10.5 lbs, 2 of 9 lbs, 2 of 8.5 lbs and 2 of 7 lbs.
• Each boat averaged 60 bass per day (2 anglers per boat).
• The Traxel family was making their 6th trip to Huites.

This last weekend’s report is more than good enough for me and confirms what Oldham, Big O and myself had proven last April. That the lake has numbers and big bass too.

Finally, I have always believed that the food at our lodges on Comedero, El Salto and Picachos was the best around. That was before my visit to Ecstancia Huites Bass Club lodge. My partner may have outdone me here. Mercy….this is as good as fishing lodge food gets! Fresh Langostino, fried fish, Filet mignon, fresh shrimp….it was absolutely incredible. The service was as good as it gets and it was also nice to jump into that big Jacuzzi after a long day on the water! The Estancia Huites Bass Club lodge and service is as good as it gets. We were certainly treated like KINGS!

We are taking reservations NOW for Lake Huites!

Ron Speed Jr’s Adventures was already leading the way in great Mexico bass fishing with our 3 lakes (Comedero, El Salto and Picachos)…now we’ve taken it to a whole new level and added a 4th lake….fabulous red hot Lake Huites!!!

Call me soon and I’ll provide you with more information on packages, dates, schedules, flights etc, etc….

Call us today:800-722-0006
GOOD FISHIN’,
RON SPEED, JR.