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Okuma Goes Savage at Lake El Salto, Mexico
(continued)
 
It was near lunch time and Dave and Joey pulled up
alongside us and with our boats tied up no more than ten feet away from each
other and all four of us proceeded to land a combined 50 plus more fish using
the Sandeels right off the very same point. I couldn’t believe how many fish
were stacked up in here and we were getting plenty of quality fish between
3-5lbs., and even the occasional 6lbr. coming up as well, and it just didn’t
seem like there was any end to how many fish were down there!
No more than 10 feet away Dave and
Joey are getting the fish too
At one point we had a triple hookup and we would
have had a quad except Dave was busy trying to salvage a Sandeel tail. While the
bite was hot our Sandeel cache was quickly depleting. The tails proved to be
pretty durable but viscous head shakes or fish leaping out of the water was
doing a real number on what few tails we had left. We became so desperate that
we started biting off the tops of the swimbait tail when they got too damaged
just so we could reuse the remaining paddletail section.
Brandon releases a healthy fish
When we finally ran out of usable paddle tails we
started using Savage Gear Sandeel slugs both by themselves and as tails on our
Sandeel jigheads. The Sandeel slugs feature a hollow body and are rigged like a
fluke but because they are so light they can be rigged with special soft
tungsten nugget weights that can be worked onto the hook into a forward position
so that the lure dives and swims like a swimbait. Positioning the nugget at the
rear position near the bend the lure will not sink as quickly and can be worked
near the surface. This implementation also worked but after another hour of
constant fish strikes even that arsenal was eventually depleted and we started
applying tails from whatever swimbaits we could scratch up from our tackle bags.
Joey holds up his catch
When we finally ran out of tails altogether we
switched back to crankbaits and swim jigs and they just didn’t prove to be
effective. It was amazing how keyed in the fish were to this one style of bait
and simply didn’t want anything else. Reminder to self… bring more Sandeel
paddletail swimbaits to El Salto next time.
The El Salto bass absolutely love
the Savage Gear Sandeels
The rest of the day was a little anti-climatic
after what was probably the most productive point that I have ever fished. It is
easy to get spoiled at El Salto and after a hundred or so fish we targeted
bigger non-schooling fish by pitching plastics into structure and as the day
wound down I got to spend some time fishing with the Helios spinning reel
baitcaster which I found to be both lightweight and well constructed. Okuma’s
roots are in spinning and I really look forward to seeing what the mass
production reels look and feel like post ICAST.
Putting on a crankbait clinic
Corey shows us one of his fish
The new Savage Gear finesse hardbaits also are
very intriguing and we were impressed with the design, build quality and pattern
options in this new series. Admittedly while have heard about Savage Gear we
haven’t fished the brand much prior to this trip and while we did catch some
fish on these baits here at El Salto we wanted to bring the baits back to
California to see just how well they perform on our home water before making a
final judgment.
Brandon fishes the Helios spinning
reel prototype
At the end of the trip we compared notes with
everyone and the guys from Tackle Warehouse had also done well using a variety
of lures. Joey pitched plastics with success into tight submerged timber and
Corey had continued to dominate with the crankbaits including the brightly
colored Savage Gear lures. Sam, Brandon and Dave were gracious hosts, allowing
us to fish off the front of the boats and yet they still managed to catch the
biggest fish of the trip, a number of them in the 9-10lb. class.
The entire crew at Okuma's El
Salto event
The biggest fish for Cal and I topped out at
around 8lbs. and while I wasn’t able to break double digits on this particular
trip some of the Okuma guys did. It seems that the decline of El Salto has been
greatly exaggerated, and the two hours spend pulling fish after fish off the
“point” was nothing short of epic. It was comical how all of us were trying to
stretch out just one more fish from each battered and ripped out Sandeel, and
without mend-it or super glue all we could do was try and re-rig around the
damage. At one point I was sure Dave was going to dive in after his last Sandeel
swimbait tail as it flipped off during the battle.
Fishing this good can be described
as absolutely "Savage!"
Savage Gear is still a relatively new brand to the
U.S. market but some of their upcoming baits look like they are sure to garner
attention from anglers that pursue largemouth, smallmouth, trout and saltwater
species stateside. When it comes to bass there are few testing grounds that
represent the unique opportunity that El Salto provides day in and day out to
not only have a 50 plus fish day but also land a double digit one as well, now
that is what I call “Savage.”
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