Whistling Past Bass : Lake El Salto Puts Anglers Over Flooded Graveyards

Bored with the usual kinds of fishing? How about fishing in a cemetery? Billy Guy Chapman Jr. can arrange it.

Chapman books trips to Lake El Salto, where the headstones and crosses provide prime cover for largemouth bass--although snags, Chapman admits, are a problem.

“We lose a lot of fish to the tombstones,” said Chapman, 36, who is based in El Paso. “They’ll either wrap you up or break you off. I walked through in May when the water was down and collected a lot of lures.”

Officials decided to create the lake in 1983, building a dam and allowing the Rio Elota to flood an area covering five villages, including their cemeteries.

“The government didn’t move any bodies or anything,” Chapman said.

Two cemeteries remained near the surface. Some of the headstones date to the early 1800s. Sometimes, when the water is low, parts of the monuments can be seen above the surface. Other times, they are eerily visible below.

“At first, some of my guides wouldn’t fish over them,” Chapman said. “They have relatives there.”

But the fishing is hard to ignore. On a slow morning, Wayne Wiechmann of Tulare and David West of San Antonio say they have caught only “40 or 50” largemouth bass.

“This is my fourth year here, and I’ve never seen it like this,” Wiechmann complains. “This is tough fishing.”

At that rate they might not reach the lake’s daily quota of 100.

Success at El Salto is measured on a different scale because virtually all catches are released. One angler tallies them with a clicker as he goes. Another counted 1,615 for his group of four over three days. For the larger ones--five to 10 pounds is not uncommon--they might put down their rods long enough to take pictures.

El Salto is a 17,000-acre reservoir in the foothills of the Sierra Madre in mainland Mexico, about a two-hour drive north of Mazatlan. The Mexican government built it for flood control and to irrigate the fields of the state of Sinaloa. Bass fishing was not part of the plan, but for bass fishermen it has become the treasure of the Sierra Madre.

The lake record is a modest 13 pounds 1 ounce, unless you count a 16-2 found floating near the dock with a tilapia in its mouth. But the lake has been lightly fished since it opened three years ago, and the fish are still growing, mostly on the tilapia.

Chapman brought the bass there with permission from the Mexican government. In 1990, he started booking trips, and this year he introduced Anglers Inn Mobile Suites--essentially, a fishing lodge on wheels.

Chapman followed his father in the outfitting business and learned from some painful experiences, particularly in South America, that a lodge is only as good as its fishing.

“I never want to be fixed (in one location) again,” Chapman said. “You’re going to pound that water and your fishing is going to diminish. There’ll always be a new lake popping up that’s better.”

Chapman developed the mobile concept two years ago. He bought his trailers, boats and other equipment in the United States and brought it all south at the expense of 43% import duty--too soon for NAFTA, he laments.

For a time he also offered fishing at nearby Lake Comadero, but when the water level dropped 120 feet, the fishing crashed. If that happens at El Salto, Chapman will simply pack up his 15 Super 17 Tracker bass boats inside the mobile homes and shift operations.

For the next few years there should be no reason to move. Chapman also offers a day of Mazatlan’s excellent sailfishing in a package tour and hopes to add dove hunting next year.

Mexico is like home to Chapman, who speaks Spanish fluently. His grandfather settled in Mexico in 1909 and married a Mexican. Billy Guy Sr. built the Chapman Motel in Los Mochis in 1968. Billy Guy Jr. dropped out of school in the ninth grade, got a job hanging sheetrock and later married a Mexican. He spends most of his time in Mexico.

“I’ve never caught a fish in the United States,” he said.

Chapman greets guests in Mazatlan and puts them up overnight at the beachfront Hotel Playa. Chapman’s bilingual hostess, Grace Wilkie, also offers tours, or a sampling of shopping and fiestas, for those who aren’t fishing.

El Salto is about 40 miles up the coast from Mazatlan on Mexico’s Interstate 15 and about 20 miles inland, the last eight over a dirt road maintained to service the dam. The village of Padon Colorado is across the road from Chapman’s complex. It had no electricity until he brought lines into the neighborhood, and it’s still not widely developed. Villagers walk with donkeys bearing loads of tree limbs to build corrals.

Chapman picked this location a few miles from the lake because of a freshwater source and the remains of an adobe that was previously a chicken coop. The only permanent structure, the coop has been remodeled into the main lodge, with a kitchen and dining room. Smoky, a great Dane, patrols the premises, primarily to keep away pigs and other stray animals.

The mobile homes are furnished on the scale of an economy motel, with indoor plumbing but no phones or TV. The nearest phone is 15 minutes away, so Henry Rodriguez’s arrival at 4:45 a.m. serves as a wake-up call. Rodriguez, who runs the food and beverage part of the operation, brings a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and flips on the lights. A breakfast of French toast, eggs, bacon, cantaloupe and papaya is waiting in the lodge, and then it’s off to the lake.

The thing to remember, El Salto veterans say, is that in most places you are fishing in the tree tops of a jungle. Chapman recommends nothing lighter than 17-pound-test line.

Mist is rising off the lake. The pre-dawn chill demands jackets or sweat shirts, although by mid-morning some anglers will be bare-chested. There will be little or no wind all day.

“We never get blown out here,” Chapman says.

Chapman, guide Carlos Anaya and a guest catch only 15 fish in the morning before returning to the lodge for lunch and siesta. They total 36 through the afternoon.

They are working a point amid “stick-up” branches when, suddenly, the glassy water comes to life. Ploop to the left. Plop to the right. Plip everywhere. The bass are leaping two feet out of the water, chasing the red dragonflies that emerge at sundown. The anglers are using Pop R lures or plastic worms. A few times they set the hook in midair. They catch and release fish until the bite stops. They are too busy to keep count.

The next day they explore other parts of the vast lake, including the mouth of the river where lush growths of water hyacinth with lavender blossoms have all but choked off passage. From the shore comes jungle sounds of birds--and cowbells. Frequently they encounter locals in little rowboats gill-netting for tilapia for the Mazatlan market.

Tilapia, a prolific warm-water fish, can ruin a good lake if they get out of control, but here there is a marvelous coexistence. The anglers trade a couple of cans of beer for a dinner’s worth of tilapia. Another gives up a few for a Rapala lure, which otherwise might cost him a day’s earnings.

Chapman has organized 58 local workers into a cooperative association. They have agreed to use net meshes large enough to allow small bass to escape. The larger bass are smart enough to avoid them--which is more than can be said for the tilapia. Then the tilapia fry provides good forage for the bass. Also, because the tilapia are vegetarians, the anglers aren’t annoyed by catching them incidentally.

Chapman and West try fishing from float tubes for the first time. Chapman figures that El Salto’s nonstop action would be ideal for fly-fishermen, although the art is virtually untested there.

Gus Hansch of Pacific Palisades agrees. Hansch has been fishing Mexican bass lakes for 13 years. But when he first brought a fly rod to El Salto, his cronies teased him, “You can’t catch bass on anything like that.”

One day, waiting for the boat to be ready, he caught three from shore.

“Yeah, but you can’t catch a big one,” they said.

Later, he caught a 7 1/2-pound largemouth, along with several larger than five pounds.

“When you get a surface strike on one of these big bass on a fly rod, you know he’s in charge,” Hansch said.

Chapman and West are throwing lures. They aren’t fly-fishermen, but once they get the hang of the tubes they don’t want to stop. The water is so warm they don’t need wet suits or waders.

Said Hansch: “I think El Salto is as close to Alaska for good-size fish and plenty of them as any place you’ll find.”

The best time of year to go, veterans say, is January through May--but the best fishing is in June and July, if you can take the heat. Chapman’s trailers are air-conditioned, but the lake isn’t.

Allen Steele was asked why he came all the way from Chester, S.C., which requires an all-day trip on four airlines.

“I’d heard stories about catching 100 fish a day,” he said. “You can’t catch that many anywhere in Carolina.”

Information on fishing Lake El Salto is available by calling (915) 577-0033 or writing to Anglers Inn, 404 E. Hague St., Suite C, El Paso, 79902.