I have two angling friends whose e-mail addresses tell a lot about their fly-fishing preferences. I won’t give the addresses away, but one is a “fly floater” and the other a “dry-fly guy.” They are not entirely purists, but will stick with floating lines and buoyant flies much of the time. This approach works well for them on their home waters, and they simply like fishing that way. I have the same preferences, whether I’m chasing trout in mountain lakes or bass and panfish at lower elevations.
Recently, I returned from another week of fly-rod bass fishing at Mexico’s Lake Picachos. My traveling partner and I always are mesmerized by the settings of Picachos and of nearby Lake El Salto, and we return annually. These lakes lie east and north of Mazatlán in the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental Mountains. In addition to the high-quality fishing, the area has an abundance of wildlife. We often saw curious white-nosed coatimundis (relatives of the racoons) foraging along the shoreline, oblivious to our presence. It’s also a birding paradise. In one back bay, we spotted a single pink flamingo among thirty or so egrets. Our guide said that there also was a species of pato (duck) that was an unanticipated visitor from Europe.
We joined 18 other anglers from the Chico Area Flyfishers and took over all the rooms and boats at an anglers inn. These lakes are special because of the culture, friendly people, scenery, plentiful cover, and abundant bass. You can work shoreline structure with top-water bass bugs of all types and find concentrations of baitfish on the surface in open water or corralled against a shoreline by voracious fish. All this coincides with prespawning and spawning activity, which arrives earlier than in our northern lakes. Our anglers reported seeing gravid females and egg-shedding males. Nests were abundant in some areas, but we did not find fish on them.
An outing such as this is both great fun and educational, because you get to compare notes at breakfast, lunch, and dinner with talented anglers and, one hopes, profit from it. Additionally, many in the group have traveled widely, chasing gamefish, and good leads come out of conversations.
Each day and on our last evening through cocktail hour and dinner, I polled everyone on what flies and techniques produced for them. We were fishing in early February, near the end of the optimal top-water season, which runs from November through January at these latitudes. It’s because the lakes, which are irrigation reservoirs, fill from torrential late summer and fall monsoonal rains, and threadfin shad and tilapia forage fish move into the upper water column at these times. Our guide, Felix, told us that the surface action is best along the shoreline when the water is high.
Here, as elsewhere, successful flies and effective methods of fishing them vary, depending on anglers’ abilities, preferences, water types, conditions such as wind and cloud cover, and the presence or the lack of morning and afternoon shade in inshore areas. Some anglers fished small minnow patterns on clear intermediate lines. But as I said, like my friends, I’m a top-water guy.
At dinner, my partner and I wound up at a table with anglers who fish on top a lot. We got into discussions about the technical aspects of throwing bass flies and fishing with floating fly lines. We agreed, after a few Pacificos (bottled in nearby Mazatlán), that this type of fly fishing requires equipment and casting skills as refined as stillwater sight fishing for trout or chasing bonefish, snook, and permit.
Top-water bass fishing can be divided into working shoreline structure, fishing stick-up timber in flooded bays or flats, and fishing bait concentrations in open water. All require stealth, the ability to cast sizeable flies a considerable distance, and exceptional accuracy. Especially when working cover and shorelines, bass are usually where you would expect to find them, and tight to cover. Accurate casts get fish, and as a general rule, a floating line will present a fly more accurately than a sinking line.
At Picachos, and at several of my favorite lakes at home, fish take the flies very close to shore or structure, rather than 15 feet or more out from it on the retrieve. The ability to put your fly within six inches of a target at a reasonable distance from your watercraft makes a huge difference. We have the ability in fly casting to measure our casts, especially with a floating line, and should take full advantage of it. Accuracy in working structure and cover is one way in which fly fishers have a decided edge over conventional-gear anglers.
At Picachos, the bass tended to blow up when the fly first hit the water or after it sat motionless for a while. Because we were fishing from boats, we were reminded of how important it is to pay attention to how the boat is positioned and how the trolling motor is controlled. A fish is getting out of its comfort zone when it takes a bug on the surface, so you want targeted fish to see the fly before it is aware of the boat’s presence. But our eager guides often positioned the boats too close to shore and moved them too quickly. They usually guide conventional-gear anglers who use bait casting or spinning rods, but for us, fast boat movement meant that we had large curves in our fly lines as soon as our bugs hit the targets near shore, requiring an initial mend to slack out of the presentation. And if boats or other watercraft are too close to shore (which is often dictated by the casting proficiency of angers aboard), you are going to scare off bigger and wiser fish. Smaller, less cautious bank runners are going to make up most of your catch. So the person running the trolling motor should be aware of your casting range and the loading point of your lines.
Boat etiquette requires that a partner verbally calls out the word “casting,” so two fly lines are not aerialized at the same time. It seems as if a tangle comes right when you are on a promising piece of structure, and you may spook fish, too, with a drifting boat while trying to unsnarl a mess or retrieve a fly stuck on a log or in a tree. Alternate casting is also an issue of courtesy and safety. We rarely saw other anglers on Picachos, but when we did, it was a pleasure to watch the aerial ballet of two accomplished fly fishers and their guide working a shoreline as a team.
The opportunity to fish the top of the water column is the major reason why my partner and I travel to this area. Fishing a Sneaky Pete on a floating line, I did best just letting the bug sit for a while, then imparting subtle twitches and pauses before gradually speeding up. If they didn’t hit it shortly after it landed, they blew up on the bug in that first two or three feet. My partner did better with noisy retrieves using vividly colored flies. Another angler did best with fish hitting the tail end of a popper/dropper combination. It is effective, but in tight quarters that rig is harder to cast accurately and can foul.
Of course, with a floating line, even a dedicated top-water enthusiast can still fish below the surface, if conditions prompt the change. I’ve had success over the years working the back end of coves, and at Picachos, I used a floating line with a purple-hackled, chartreuse-bodied, mildly weighted Pig Boat (in tilapia colors) with two extra feet of tippet. The Pig Boat is quite weedless without a guard, and these coves were filled with both cautious fish and woody material. With the floating line, I was able to pick up bass on the fall after accurately positioning my cast to the shady side of a tree or where I thought the channel would be, then using a subtle retrieve that didn’t hang up on sunken timber. A sinking line would have grounded out and hung up far too frequently. I even fished Gummy Minnows that way. I found that some of my flies fluttered on the fall when I cast and let them sink, again using a long leader at the end of a floating line. That flutter, and intermittent slow twitches, possible only with the floating line setup, seemed to attract the fish. I’m going to tie and test Gummy Minnows to see what body proportions best enhance the flutter. I will also construct them on wider-gaped hooks, better suited to hooking hard-jawed bass.
At Picachos, we discovered that many top-water flies and floating-line techniques worked. Cloud cover dramatically enhanced our top-water success. On other days, we dealt with bright sunlight and wary fish. One angler hit the jackpot by speeding up his poppers. Others hit pay dirt by changing the color of their lead fly or by downsizing their bugs. Under our outdoor comedor, conversations were rich and friendships were cemented. Back at home, I lucked into a DVD of The Treasure of Sierra Madre, featuring Humphrey Bogart and director John Huston. I couldn’t help thinking back to Lake Picachos and its treasures. I’ll bet a pitcher of margaritas that old miner Dobbs’s gold mine was about three miles, east by south east, from where I took a six-and-a-half-pound bass on a yellow, gold, and red Sneaky Pete.
