Sorry for the late update, but here it is. I spent 4 days fishing with my 15 yeart old son, his friend and my brother in law.
Just the facts
Day 1 - 19 fish including a 10lb 10 oz (26 in ling, 28 in girth) and a 7lb 2 oz
Day 2 - 30 fish including a 4lb 10 oz
Day 3 - 38 fish including a 4 lb 5 oz
Day 4 - 50 fish, including
7lb 5oz
6lb 5oz
3lb 10oz
4lb 6oz
4lb 5oz
5lb 7oz
I mostly fish Northern and Walleye up north, so this was a learning experience for me. Lake Guerrero has about 95,000 acres of water, so we covered a small portion only.
Day one in invited our guide to fish and watched his technique. This helped speed up my learning curve quite a bit. The setup that worked best for me was a 7ft St Croix med heavy fast rod with a Calcutta 250 TE DC reel spooled with 30lb power pro (8lb diameter). The heavy line is needed as you are fishing in trees and rocks and the line takes a beating. There is no weed growth. The bottom is rock and stone. The tops of trees stick up out of the water and we fished these like a weed bed. Smaller fish inside the tree line and the larger ones on the edges. I used a #3 offset hook with 2 yellow beads between the hook and the bullet weight. 8 inch plastic lizards and trick worms worked best. I also stained the tails with Chartruese spike it. We tries some top water early in the morning and caught a few, but jiggins with plastic worked the best.
Most of the fish caught were 1 lb or so. This was disappointing, althought I knew we were going post spawn. I also knew Guerrero has a reputation for being past its prime, bgut it is easy to get to and the price was reasonable. El Salto, Huites and Backarach (sp?) have a better rep but are difficult to get to from Chicago. Prior to this trip the largest Bass I ever caught was 2 lbs, so the 10 big ones I did land were a kick.
We stayed at Las Palmas 2000. The facilities, food and service were excellent. The owner, Ramiro, runs a great operation.
If I cannot get a trip to the western lakes, I might try Guerrero in Jan or Feb.
BTW, my son and his friend each caught a 4 and 5 pounder, my borther in law landed a 3 pounder. He is a fairly experienced fisherman with more time on the water than I have, but it was just one of those times when the fish were at my end of the boat.
