About a month or so ago, I was alerted that Randy Groves would be my fishing partner for El Salto.  It is his first time to go, so I had reached out to give him some tips on what to bring and what it was like in Mexico.  Thought we’d do some fishing together before January, so we got together on Saturday to fish my club lake.  Randy was kind enough to join me to his reservation at the Bluffs today.  We had a most awesome day – and we were able to get on some very nice large fish, especially early.   I was determined to break 100 by myself, my last 100 fish day came in August of 2014 on a large area of schooling fish that didn’t stop breaking water for nearly 3 hours. I didn’t quite get there today, but I was close. This was a top 10 fishing day for me (top 3 in the states) and Randy’s GFDOAT.   Perfect fish catching conditions till 1pm (I prefer wind to no wind, I know some people don’t). 

1. Water temp was 68 upon arrival, warming to 72 by midday.  Water was a bit clearer than when I fished a week ago (it was colder when I fished it with my daugher). Wind was 10mph to start, blowing to near whitecaps by midday.  Fished from crack of dawn to 6pm, Randy getting off the water a few hours earlier than I did because of the wind. 
2. I started with a Frog and Spook – casting the former over the prevalent pond weed and the latter next to it and across transition areas. Caught a few good ones on the spook, but on my 3^rd cast with a green frog, I hit pay dirt with a 8lb 9ozer across some pond weed near a branch – thankfully I had braid or I probably would not have gotten her in. My best fish since June of this year.  That fish is right next to my body, and I’m relatively fat just to give you some perspective on her girth. 
3. Stayed with that pattern near island and points till it seemed to taper off. Caught some really nice fish that way.   This is about when the wind picked up and I couldn’t move and cast anymore. 
4. New plan – would move to a spot, anchor off with my 25lb dumbell and fan cast an area using a rattle trap and this is where the numbers came on.  I used the compact, but heavy Jackall TN60 in chartreuse.  Burning it with a pause and ripping it through pond weed.  I’d catch 10-15 per spot, then move.  Alot of culls (72), but every 7 fish or so, there would be a good one in there. 
5. Randy used a spinner bait, and he didn’t get numbers with it, but he did get some really good 4’s, 5’s, and a 6 or so.  
6. I could highlight the spots I fished, but they are mostly the same ones I circled on my last report with about 40% coming off the small island that forms a litle channel next to what I consider the main lake.  
7. Bite slowed considerably when the sun started peeking out intermittently around 1:30pm,. but was still able to find a fair number of fish in the deeper channels in transition areas betweent the main lake and the area you launch from. 
8. In all, we boated 117 and that is with me losing a fair number of good fish at the boat (the downside to that small rattletrap is that the hooks are small and the big mouthed fish could throw it with ease when they jumped or I tried to boat flip – mental note, bring a net next time).  
9. Note, the smaller one’s I’m hoisting aren’t to show you a small fish but a visual of the area, depth, lane I threw in, or how close to the bank it was.