Fishing the Pre-Spawn and Spawn

Posted on by by Posted in Fishing Reports, Ron's Fishing Tips & Stories

Pre-spawn Lake Comedero bass[Editor: this article first appeared on www.ronsfishingblog and may only be used by permission of Ron Speed]

Today I am going to talk about fishing the pre-spawn & spawn and use Mexico this season as an example. The spawn is one of the easiest times to catch bass because they are up shallow and will strike an artificial lure from both hunger and to protect the nest.

J.W Peterson of Dallas has taken a big group of fishermen to Lake Comedero each year for the past 10 years and they fish the spawn in both January and February over the full moons. JW just returned from Comedero and Salto last night. He called the office this morning and said this was the absolute best trip in all the years he has been going to these two lakes. His group caught over 3500 bass with 20 bass over 10 pounds. The #1 bait was a white spinnerbait which is an easy bait to fish as you just throw it into shallow water and reel it back.

On the 27th Terry and Sandy Russell from Texas caught 117 bass with a 12.3 pound bass from Comedero. Nearly all boats had over 100 bass per day and almost all had over 100 bass per day per boat with almost everyone catching a trophy bass.

The group was doing a 4-day combo, fishing both Comedero and El Salto. On January 31, JW and Jaime Beach caught 120 bass with a 12lb, 11.8lb, and two 10 lb bass. Just think about those numbers and the trophys all in one day. On Feb. 2 they had 75 bass on TOP WATER (chug bugs) with a 10.2, 9.8 and a 9.2. That’s fantastic topwater fishing. JW said there were several 12 lb fish caught while he was at El Salto.

This group was fishing pre-spawn as the bass have not spawned yet which means this year we will have actual spawns in February and in March. Things are running about 1 month behind normal for western Mexico.

In the year 2000 I took a group of friends to Comedero in mid-December to fish the pre-spawn. We made an agreement that we would only fish topwaters. We held a tournament where we would weigh in 5 bass per day but could only weigh 1 fish at a time. So when you caught a big bass you had to quit fishing and return to the dock and weigh the fish and turn it loose. You could then return for another big bass. We were going to fish 5 days but we caught so many bass we were worn out after 4 days. We caught 27 bass over 10 pounds with a 14.4 pound bass being the largest. On the last day I and my partner were leading the pack at lunch. However at the end of the day we got beat by Terry Burghart & Skeeter Joe Solice by 8 ounces. Their 5 fish weighed 51 pounds and our 5 fish weighed 50 pounds 8 ounces. That’s an average of 10 pounds per fish, all on topwaters.

Fishing pre-spawn and spawn can be great, but if you happen to miss by fishing between spawns you will only catch small male bass in shallow water. Therefore you will have to position the boat in shallow water and throw out into deeper water to get the big females that are staging in tops of trees waiting to move up shallow to spawn.

Here in Texas our pre-spawn starts most years in late February with the small male bass coming shallow to begin making nests for the females. If water temps are in the 60- to 65-degrees range in late March you will see the big females move in to start the spawning process. Not all females will spawn at the same time so the process will drag out through April as well.

I much prefer to fish the pre-spawn myself. but the actual spawn can also be great.

GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR FISHING AND REMEMBER TO WEAR THAT LIFEJACKET!!


First Years Bass Fishing at Lake El Salto

Posted on by by Posted in Ron's Fishing Tips & Stories

Ron Speed's experience in Cuba solving the problem of skinny fish[Editor: this article first appeared on www.ronsfishingblog and may only be used by permission of Ron Speed]

Today I am going to talk about the early days of bass fishing at Lake El Salto in Mexico. Last week’s blog was about El Salto and the reason I am talking about it again is that Salto and Lake Fork in Texas have become the two most famous lakes in bass fishing history.

We opened the fishing camp on the water in November of 1990. The fishing was good but not great as far as big fish caught. Our clients caught lots of numbers, just like at all new Mexican lakes, but most were in the 2 to 4 lb range with many smaller than 2 lbs. Every so often a client would catch a 5 or 6 pound fish, but there weren’t many that size.

We continued to operate on this lake until clients became tired of catching so many small bass and the fish became very skinny. They looked like they were starving to death. When the lake was new in that first year there were plenty of threadfin shad and tilapia for the bass to eat. The netters had caught many tons of the tilapia since in those years they didn’t have a conservation program in effect like they do now. Also, the lake had so many black bass that the tilapia and the shad were all eaten up in a couple of years.

I had seen this happen only once in my life and that was in Cuba’s Lake Hanabanilla. The Cuban fishing department had asked me to fish the lake and tell them why there were no middle size (2 lb to 5 lb) bass in the lake. I took Jimmy Olive–a great friend from Port Arthur, Texas–with me to this lake. In 3 days of fishing we caught over 100 bass a day in shallow water with none weighing over a pound. We moved out to deep water and caught bass up to 10 lbs. Those bass were not really fat and in good condition and we too found no middle size bass. I wrote my report to the Cubans advising them to stock some forage fish like shad or bluegill if they wanted to produce more middle-size fish. The bass in Hanabanilla had turned to cannibals and were feeding off of smaller bass since there was nothing else for them to eat. Consequently there were no middle-size bass.

Now here we are at Lake El Salto 13 years later facing a similar problem. We closed down our camp for 2 years and I began looking for a solution. I called the head of the Fishing department in Texas and told him what the situation was at Salto. He advised me to do the same thing that I had advised the Cubans to do 13 years earlier. Since I had never tried to transport live shad, I had him tell me exactly how to do it. He also sent me a booklet with all the details.

The camp manager at that time was Segis Benetez, and Segis knew where there was a lagoon near the ocean that had lots of threadfin shad. I explained to Segis on how to catch and transport shad so they would live. I had learned that you must catch the shad at night in a seine when it is cool. You cannot touch the shad with your hands, your transport container must be round like a barrel, and you must fill the barrel with water where the shad live so as to have exactly the same water temperature.

Segis and Beto, one of the local boys who worked at the camp, spent 2 months catching and hauling shad to the lake. The next season we saw thousands of shad on top of the water in Lake El Salto and in a matter of months we were not catching any skinny bass. The bass got really fat, but did not seem to grow any bigger until we began stocking the lake with Florida bass…another story for another time!!!!!!!

ENJOY YOUR FISHING AND WEAR THAT LIFEJACKET!!!


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