Great fishing in western Mexico

I just came back from a fishing trip in western Mexico, in the coastal state of Sinaloa. Home to lake El Salto, Baccarac and Huites, Sinaloa is famous for its huge bass and excellent fisheries. The lake that I visited, Picachos, is new to fishing and it doesn’t disappoint. Actually, I experimented the craziest fishing ever, having caught more than 300 bass in three fishing days, most of them over the 2-pound mark. I didn’t break my record but I caught some very nice fish touching 10 lbs.
For this outing, I was accompanied by Trey Kistler, President/Founder of Kistler rods in his first kayak bass fishing adventure. He was fishing from a Wilderness Systems Ride 115, I joined him from both a WS Ride 115 and a WS Tarpon 100. He was immediately hooked. He said, “one of the first things I’ll do when I go back home is to get a kayak like this”. Mario Gutierrez, my great friend and fishing partner, and Luis Fernando Gamez who kindly took us and the kayaks to the far side of the lake also accompanied us in this trip. Our fishing outfitter was Sergio Villasenor “El Villano” ( [email protected], ) who put us on the fish.
We had most success using swimbaits, swim jigs, jig-n-pig, ribbontail worms, spinnerbaits and big flutter spoons. I favoured a custom Kistler KLX spinning rod (6’10” Heavy) and a Helium 7′ Heavy rod. Trey used a 7’3” Heavy Magnesium Frog & Slop rod and a 7’6” Heavy Carbon Steel All Day Power Tool. Mario relied on his 7′ Heavy ZBone rods. Most of my bass came from the KLX, which proved deadly in a spinning configuration for making short casts between the brush. I used 30 lb braid (no leader), and Trey used 20lb fluorocarbon line. he got a nice 12-lb bass from the Ride 115 that certainly took him for a ride onto the trees! The fights between drowned trees were phenomenal.
Using a fishfinder -Lowrance Elite 5 DSI- really made a difference for finding subtle differences in structure. Coberture was everywhere but where we could find small ditches and depressions, old dirt roads and pile rocks or small dropoffs, we were certain to catch some nice fish.
Great fishing! I really can’t wait to go back 😉

Moving to the far side of the lake:

Bass were frequently associated with brush:

Trey Kistler with a very nice chunky bass:

Mario making short work of this good fish:

A good fishfinder really helped a lot to find the bass:

When we hit a promising rock pile we fished it from all angles!

And we also got some very nice open-water fish:

Trey taking a break, fishing from the bank

My favorite baits for this trip, big paddletail swimbait and large swim jig

This was a fishing trip to remember. Only from kayak!

Who says fishing is easy? A week after the trip and my arms still ache from all the big bass, I guess I need a bit more rest 😉