We have just returned from opening up Trophy Bass Lodge on Lake Huites, Mexico for the new season. After a summer of hard work, equipment acquisition and dealing with the headaches of getting it all down to the lodge, it was nice to be rewarded with some great fishing.
Before ever making it to the lake, we took a day to again explore the offshore fishery in the Los Mochis area. This part of the Sea of Cortez remains, in my opinion, an untapped fishery. Our first trip, last November, resulted in a 3 hour battle with a 350 pound blue marlin. This time, our efforts were rewarded with 11 Yellowfin Tuna between 20 and 45 pounds. There is no telling how many we could have caught, unfortunately we did not have the ice or the room to handle what we kept. These two trips have proven to me that if we can find a way to get the right boat down there, we could provide some incredible saltwater fishing. The boats we have used thus far have been less that reassuring, with the first one catching on fire at the boat ramp, and this past boat requiring us to pump the primer bulb to keep fuel to the engine. But you got to do what you got to do, right?
After recovering from the day offshore, we headed to the lodge the next afternoon after taking care of some business in town. We found Huites to be in great shape and around 92% of pool. I found this puzzling, because just two weeks ago the lake was over 100%. What had happened was they had pulled the lake back down to create some additional capacity as most of the lakes are close to 100%. This caused the bass to pull off the banks throughout most of the lake, and suspend in the trees and out in the river. If you stayed on the bank and tried to fish Huites like we usually do, it seemed there was not a fish in the entire lake. There were two exceptions, the backs of two coves where there was substantial runoff from the creeks and waterfalls. These two areas were loaded with bass, and over the next 4 days one of them produced more than 20 bass over 5 pounds! They were bunched up in the back, and would hit flukes, swimbaits, YUM Dingers and Zellamanders.
Most of the rest of the trip was spent in a creek that was about 1 mile long, and it seemed every bass in the lake was roaming up and down this creek. At times they would push up on the shore, but most of the time they were out in the deeper water, about 5 feet deep in water ranging from 30 to 100 feet deep. Once we realized this, we pulled out our Excaliber Xr50 Rattle Baits and proceeded to thrashing them! Now this was not the most glamorous way to catch them, but sometimes you just have to adjust to what they want. During most of the morning and afternoon, they would school on small baitfish, and if you could get the Xr50 within 5 feet of the blowup you had them. They were also hitting the Zell Pop Topwater and small stick baits like the Excaliber Xt3 and Xs4. The guys who made the adjustment to the suspended fish caught 30 to 60 fish a day, and the guys that stayed on the bank managed around 10 to 30 fish per day. While it was definitely different, it was still a lot of fun catching them on these baits.
The lodge is now open, and the season will run through June 2009. The bass are beginning to transition back to the banks, and within the next week or so should be back to their typical Huites patterns. All of the bass were extremely healthy, and it looks like the lake will continue to improve on last season which was the best we have seen since being involved with the lodge.
We still have a few openings in November, which is topwater time at Huites, and January and February are filling fast so give me a call today to book you spot! I guarantee you Trophy Bass Lodge is THE lodge on Huites, with the best equipment and staff! I will post a link to the video of this trip as soon as I have it edited.
Brett Graham
Trophy Bass Lodge
903-815-6764
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