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

Lake Comedero – A giant breaks…HEART!!!

Comedero guide with Ron Jr’s 10 pounder, Jan 2016

I just returned from 2 weeks at lakes Comedero and Picachos! I took a group of 11 anglers/friends to beautiful Lake Comedero on December 28th. It was comprised mostly of the same group that fished there with me a year ago for a “checkout” trip. We arrived to classic “El Nino” conditions in that it was colder than normal and drizzling rain off and on for nearly 4 of our 6 days. The lake had risen several feet prior to our arrival due to the lake receiving over 3″ a few days earlier. We knew this spelled “tough bite”…and it was the first day but by the second day, we had a pattern nailed for BIG BASS. That pattern was spinnerbait…which of course broke my heart…NOT. There are miles and miles of shoreline bordered with miles and miles of the thorniest brush I’ve ever seen or fished. That brush is absolutely loaded with not thousands but rather millions of young 3 – 4” long Tilapia. Those Tilapia are in that brush feeding on the algae that’s growing. Sitting just underneath as well as on the edge of that brush are some really BIG bass! Along the edge of the brush, which extends out as far as 15′ – 20′ from the shore, is an average depth of 25′ – 35′ of water. The big bass, however, are suspended down anywhere from 1′ – 8’….gorging themselves on the smaller size Tilapia. This was the only consistent pattern we could find big bass willing to bite. Sometimes it was feeding strikes, others I believe were just reaction strikes to the big # 7 size gold willow blades we were using on our spinner baits. One day while fishing a long skinny peninsula lined with a solid wall of this thorny brush, I had an absolute monster load up on my 1 oz Oldham spinner bait. As soon as I set the hook into this beast, I screamed “NET! NET! NET!”…I’ve hooked thousands of bass in my life on spinner baits, many over 10 pounds, and I had never felt the weight nor the power that I felt on this fish. She did everything an angler would want her to do and that is to not head back into that thick thorny brush but rather she smoked the drag on my Shimano Chronarch reel while racing out to deep water! After a few seconds of peeling some 15 – 20 feet of line off the reel, I got her head turned…well, I think she decided she would give me a chance. HA! She cleared the water on that first jump…which was approximately 30 feet from the front of my boat…and when I saw her, my first thought was “OMG, THAT FISH IS A YARD STICK LONG!!!”…not exactly your typical Comedero bass which are generally as thick as they are long….short and thick TANKS! Not this giant…she was long and thick! My guide (Ramiro), was waiting patiently beside me with the net in the water and for me to lead this monster into the net. As the giant approached the net and within 2′ of being “mine”, she decided to make one final attempt to free herself and jumped again…this time I got an up close and personal look at her….holy cow this was the biggest bass I’ve ever laid my eyes upon…at least 30″ or longer…when she cleared the water, she shook her head and SNAP (!)…my line broke and she swam off with my 1 oz Oldham spinner bait! I hit my knees on the front deck of the boat and didn’t say a word. My fishing partner, Mike McGowan, always being very calm and subtle with his words, said “Umm, that was a BIG fish”….ya think, Mike??? Well, I finally got my senses back and reeled in the loose line…and found a curl in the end. Line broke in the knot!!! My fault…shouldn’t have let the guide re-tie my line and gone with my own knot. It wasn’t that his knot was bad but rather I wouldn’t have anyone else to blame but myself…and so therefore it was MY FAULT. Everyone in the group heard about the monster that got away and asked me how much I thought that fish weighed? My answer was simply, “I have no idea because I’ve never seen nor had a bass hooked THAT BIG prior to that day. Since I have landed at least 3 bass on Comedero in the 12 pound class in previous years, I would just go with it being somewhere between 13 pounds and a new world record (23 pounds). All I know is that she’s still there, swimming around in Lake Comedero with my big 1 oz Oldham spinner bait in her jaw! As a consolation, a very small consolation mind you, I was able to land at 10 lbs, 4 oz bass two days later on spinnerbait. I never dreamed I would be so “ho-hum” to land a 10 pounder but after seeing the giant that got away, that’s the most emotion I could conjure up. Oh well.

Jeff Abernathy with Comedero 10lb

As for the rest of the week, there were highs and lows but overall the fishing met everyone’s expectations as there were 3 bass landed among our group that exceeded 10 pounds. In fact, Tom Gridley and Jeff Abernathy, while partnered together all week, had two banner days of fishing where on one day they landed 94 bass with each one of them landing 10 1/2 pound toads, one 9 1/2 lbs and two 8 lbs. Their 5 biggest that day totaled 47 pounds! All on Oldham’s big spinner baits! On another day they landed 88 bass with numerous 5’s, 6’s and 7’s…again, fishing that thick thorny brush with big spinnerbaits!

The bigguns are in there but with constant El Nino rains prior to the New Year, the water has been somewhat unstable and off-color the first couple of weeks of January. We were able to find this big bass biting in the San Jose creek area which was the best colored water on the lake. We’ve had two groups fish there since we left and the largest bass landed thus far has been 10 lbs along with a couple of 9’s. The good news is that we haven’t had a rain in almost 3 weeks and the water condition is improving every day. The full moon is coming up soon and that first wave of big bass will move up to spawn…as they do every year in Jan (as well as Feb and March). I expect some huge bass to be landed soon! More on Comedero in our next update.

Comedero Sunset, January 2016

Picachos…can it really get any better???

Terry Oldham with His Picachos Monster

Seriously, does bass fishing get any better? After 6 days on Comedero, half of my group made the journey down to Picachos with Terry Oldham and me. Terry and I were planning to make some improvements in the wiring to the new Picachos boats while the other guys went there strictly for fishing. We arrived Picachos Monday afternoon around 1 pm and by 2:30 pm, all boats were out fishing. Well, except Oldham and me. After watching him and one of our helpers work on boats for an hour, I decided they really didn’t need my help. Of course I was just itchin’ to get out there and wet a hook….a spinner bait of course. HA! I said to Oldham, “Umm, Terry, if you don’t need my help, I think I might go drown a spinner bait….if you don’t mind?” He told me fine, get after it. Well twist my arm, Terry! By the time I got my tackle together, it was around 4:30 pm…about 1 1/2 hours to fish. My guide Daniel and I headed toward the river. He pulled up to this island close to the shore and told me, “Iguana plastico es muy buena aqui”…which means plastic lizards are very good here. He then pointed toward the shoreline. I replied, “Noooo, spinner bait es MUY BUENA AQUI!” He should have known me better than that and I would pick up a rod with a spinner bait. However, to appease him, I did throw twice toward the shore and landed two bass …about a pound and half each. Then on my third cast, I threw out toward the flooded tree tops and bushes that were in about 20′ – 30′ with tops sticking up above the water’s surface. The first cast throwing toward deeper flooded bushes produced a bass about 5 1/2 lbs. My second cast toward the deeper tops produced another bass about 5 1/2 lbs…and my third cast throwing out produced one about 4 1/2 lbs. In one hour and not moving the boat more than 50 yards, just working that one particular area, I landed 35 bass…by myself….and 8 of them were between 4 and 5 1/2 lbs and very few under 2 1/2 lbs. There was just a little less than 30 minutes left to fish before dark. I noticed out in front of that island, a shelf that runs way out toward the river, with a nice little ripple on the water…perfect for topwater action. So I picked up my Strike King KVD version of a Pop-R or “Yellow Magic” topwater and began casting. That first series of “bloops” produced a nice chunky 3 1/2 pounder! Over the next 20 minutes, I landed 17 bass on topwater…that’s right at a bass per minute and really every cast…or so it seemed. My largest on topwater was just shy of 5 lbs! Most were solid 2 – 3 1/2 pounds but a few 4’s and that one 5 1/2. So in 1 1/2 hours, fishing alone, I landed a total of 52 bass! That’s gettin’ it done, folks! My group absolutely hammered out numbers of bass up to 9 pounds. Oldham got in on the fun one day while fishing spinner baits up the river with me and landed a beautiful 9 pound hawg…on spinner bait! Gridley and Abernathy had two days where they hit 300 bass or more each day! They had some 6’s and 7’s. In other words, this lake is just filthy with bass. The best news to me was seeing that the average size appears to have increased from last season to this season! Everyone in my group had already fished Picachos numerous times in the last 1 1/2 years. All believe the lake has more bass in it now than before. I don’t know about THAT…but will say it definitely hasn’t lost any bass. It’s packed with them!!! Topwater, spinner baits, plastics, cranks….it simply doesn’t matter what you throw at them. They’re all working extremely well right now! I’ve said it before and will say it again….you need to get down there because these new lakes that produce THESE insane numbers don’t stay like this forever. I do believe Picachos should last a long time but the action/numbers will surely decline in the coming years but the size get bigger. If you’re a numbers angler, you won’t find any better lake in the world right now. Of course Picachos does have some giants in it but right now you simply need to go there for the numbers. We have two other great lakes in Comedero and El Salto that provide excellent chances at BIG bass. We also have quite a few groups doing our “Combo” trips this season…combos of Comedero/Picachos, El Salto/Picachos and even Comedero/El Salto for the diehard trophy anglers! We offer you not one, not two but THREE of the very best bass lakes in the world! Call us today and come experience the best bass fishing trip of a lifetime!

El Salto …still HOT!!!

Steve ” Big O ” Parks with 2 El Salto giants!!!

In my last update, I reported that the numbers this year on Salto are very good and exceeding the normal average per boat, per day. That has continued as our boats are averaging 75+ bass per day. Some doing less but many catching more than 75 per day. A little over a week ago, Bill Duckworth, Jr landed 57 bass while fishing alone. His largest bass weighed 9.8 lbs. That same day, John Bond and Jerry Krepff caught 101 bass and landed two 8 pounders. The day prior, Bond and Kepff landed 105 bass and had one bass of 8.4 and another of 9.0 lbs. There haven’t been many 10+ pound bass to report being caught but definitely a lot of fish and plenty of bass in the 7 – 9 pound range. The lake is in excellent condition and still holding around 85 – 90% full. As stated above, the full moon is approaching quickly and that first wave of big fish should be moving up to spawn. I fully expect some BIG bass to be caught in the coming weeks. More in our next update!

(left to right ) Edgar Ramos, Steve Parks, Edgar Tellez Jr., Co-host of ” Vamanos de Pesca” Mexico’s Outdoor TV Show crowded the livewells with these 4 El Salto Beauties

COMBO PACKAGES AVAILABLE!!!

Just a reminder that we offer “combo” packages for all three lakes! If you’re strictly a diehard trophy bass angler, then you cannot do better than combining Lakes Comedero and El Salto in the same trip! The two best trophy bass lakes in the world! If you want the best of trophy action as well as numbers, then a combination of Comedero and Picachos OR El Salto and Picachos! These three lakes are close enough to fish all three or a combination of two. Call our office today for more details!

Call us today to reserve your trip of a lifetime! 800-722-0006