I am going to amistad in oct. for the first time, will fish wiyh JC the first day, and then I have a few days to kill and plan on going out solo for a few days. Has anyone ever had any problems on the lake with our friends to the south or is what i am hearing just BS. Thanks MATT

I have been fishing there for over 30 years and NEVER had one single problem. I fish the Mexico side exclusively. They are the friendliest people around and will not mess with you. The stories you hear are all BS. Don't believe them. You will have no problem whatsoever if you buy your Mexican fishing license. I speak Spanish and found them to be very helpful and friendly.

Thanks HAG I figured that was the case, I have been flying south of the border over 30 years {damn we are old} and never had any real problems.

He's probably talking about how SICK the fish look.

I have heard this from a few people , but can not confirm anything is wrong.

I have these from pretty reliable sources though.


If this is not what you are talking about, sorry.

Casey

what the Hag said

teamron

You may be stopped by the D.E.A, border patrol,texas game warden,national park ranger,homeland security or some other U.S. agency that I havent mentioned.If you see any mexican officials on the water it will be rare.And with the prescense of the aforemention patrols in force, mexican criminals are very scarce.I have fished here a long time and I feel as safe and comfortable on the mexican side of the lake as i do in my own living room.

THE FISH AT AMISTAD ARE NOT SICK!!!!! There are some poor fish as there are in every lake, but overall the fish are healthy. I dont know who keeps starting this BS about LMBV but its not true and it dosent help the people who make a living on this lake. If there was a virus, with almost 70,000 acres it wouldnt effect the whole lake anyway. Just my $.02 worth JVON

I dont think the poster was reffering to sick fish,somebody got confused

If you're really worried, there is more than ample water on the Texas side with plenty of fish. I go down there at least twice a month and the only problem I have ever had is with folks at the launch ramp thinking it's the swimming area.

Ive fished Amistad my whole life and never run across any Mexican officials and if you do run into them it is rare and youll be fine as long as you have the Mexican License.

James

You might look out for very big jugs in open water on the main lake, last Sept I was prefishing for the open and running back on the main lake on the Mexican side one evening, had been running back the same route for several days. Saw a 2-3gallon jug that had not been there that am or the previous days, did not think anything about it until the co angler with me noticed a head attached to it. We were way out in the main lake and offshore, no boats around, I swung the boat around and got within shouting distance to the guy. Intially I thought some mexican fisherman in a small boat had sunk his boat, (it was a little rough out there that afternoon) The guy initially dove down and stayed underwater for around a minute, then he had to come up for air, had a snorkel and goggles on. I spoke to him in Spanish and asked him if he was OK and needed help (thinking his boat had sunk) He was very pleasant and said multiple times he was OK and denied having any problems and did not need any help. So we went on our way, there was probly 3-4ft waves on the main lake at that time. I was tired from fishing all day and from making a long run in bumpy water, so we went on our way, I did not think much of it untill later I was talking about it with my roomates, we figured with the warm water temps it must have been somebody trying to immigrate to the US by swimming across the widest part of the lake, guess the guy might have had drugs hidden in his jug, but it appeared like he was using it for a flotation device. I probly should have reported it to the border patrol, but the incident slipped my mind untill long after I had my boat out of the water. I know I sure won't be running on plane very close to very many jugs in the future on Amistad or Falcon, I had probly ran within 10ft of that jug when we went by just to see if someone had marked a spot of grass or something. I about crapped when my coangler grabbed my arm and said "There's a head attached to it".

Easy there jvon and nomotortillas,

I never said they were sick, I said they looked sick.

I was getting ready to set up a trip with a Elite Series Pro for "A Day On The Water" and got the report the fish may not be very photo friendly, to call and check before we went.

I also said that I couldn't confirm this it's just what I have heard. Once again to anyone who miss read that and took offense to what I said, taking it the wrong way about there home lake. Sorry this is why people post questions on here to get all feed back. It's not like I started a post bashing the lake.

Safety wise, you have nothing to worry about, just have proper license and safety equipment.

Have a Great Trip and make sure you post plenty of picks on the TFF.

As far as the head attached to the Jug......I'm just glad the story ended with a body with it.

Casey

Right on Casey, at first I thought this was some death story.

Navigator are you sure the guy didnt have a spear gun or some other kind of fishing device? I have seen a few mexican fisherman that use snorkels and spear guns.I know it sounds odd but I have seen them way offshore at times and in fairly deep water.
Mr bass,I was just stating that I didnt think that Matt was referring to the sick fish rumor in his post.

I have fished there since I was a kid. I have never had any problems, but that's not to say there haven't been some. Make sure you have your Mexican license for sure, but I don't think that the only problems to be had are with the federalies. I would be more wary of the locals. I have been back in creeks before, and had mexican boats (locals) come around and act very suspicious. I am not saying that they would have done anything, but when you are up around MM 22 in the back of a creek, and you get cornered back there: you might be screwed. I say, stay aware of the boats around you and be cautious. I have a 250 on the back of my rig, so when I feel something is not right I will just take off and fish a different spot. Down at Falcon earlier this year we had a mexican fisherman come over and circle us while we were fishing. We were just flipping some brush and here comes this guy with his outboard and just drives circles around us to run us off. Guess he did not want us getting caught in his nets: regardless some of these cats to the south are not friendly and do not have good intentions . So be aware, and you will not wind up having problems.

Somebody needs to quit spreading the BS about sick fish. I fished the lake all summer and never had any problems with sick fish. Like the Hag, I speak spanish and the people are extremely friendly and won't give you any problems. You're fishing an AWESOME lake and you have nothing to worry about. ENJOY!!!

I think a few people on here need to cool down a little. Wednesday I was on the phone with Lindy Roberts. One of his friends had just returned from a week at Amistad. He said the same thing - a lot of the fish they caught looked "sick."

I don't think there's anything wrong with asking a few questions about something that keeps coming up.

I've caught alot of big headed skinny fish also in the last 2 years. I blame it on all the plastics they're eating. Amistad has been getting hammered lately.

Matt, the man and woman couple that run the "fish and game" department here on Amistad are some of the nicest people I have met from Mexico. They only ask that you have your license. If you don't, you get fined. No different from us. As a matter of fact, you will much more likely be checked by our side versus Mexico. You rarely see any mexican boats and I have only seen two fish camps. Nets are not a problem here. The couple I speak of come into the shop at least once a week, and even though I don't speak enough spanish to have a conversation, my employees do and play go-between language wise for us. Have had some nice conversations with them. As far as the fish problem is concerned, Manchu hit it on the head. Every fish we have opened up that looked like that, big head , skinny fish have had the same problem. Full of plastic they couldn't digest or expell, or a had a big carolina rig hook that had somehow closed off their stomach. These fish were literally starving to death. As I said in a post before, TP+W personnel are working on a system to get these plastics out of the fish without harming them. When that technique becomes available will post it asap as I am helping them with the research. And another item you must think of, this is summer. Most fish are lean and mean anyway. For example, take my 13.60# from Choke Canyon. She was 30 inches long, 21 inch girth. She should have been a lake record, if not a state record if you do the formula/math etc.... She was caught in August. Same deal. Even though most fish we are catching are flat out footballs, there are some as described. The weigh-in fish during the summer trail that we have lost have been 99% just like that. When the folks filleted them as to not waste the resource (game wardens favorite line) they all had the same problem. Full of plastics. I have a pic on the bulliten board of the shop with the worst example we found. That fish had 6 very large plastic baits in it's stomach that I couldn't understand how it got them in there in the first place, but they were there. Check out the pic if ya'll come by. Might make ya think twice about throwing plastic worms overboard again. Just FYI. Regards.

Thanks Carl, I was not worried about the fish as lomg as they pull on my line I do not care what they look like. I had just heard some BS about fishermen getting hassled,I thought it was just BS and I will see you the first part of oct. look forward to staying with you.

I do wonder about something here since the post is now talking about sick fish.I wonder if the fish got sick because they ate the plastic worms laying in the mud on the bottom of the lake,or did they eat the plastic worms laying in the mud on the bottom of the lake because they were sick and had trouble finding anything else to eat?I guess some bass will eat anything.

predators