El Salto, Mexico,
Give Me An Edge On Catching BIG Bass
By Thatch Maguire:
Give me an edge… anything; better reels, better rods, better line, better lures, better electronics, better clothes, better sunglasses. If it will help me catch bigger bass, I’m all in, and the industry knows that. They’ve been turning out improvements every year for as long as I can remember. It’s big business selling us improvements each year. The process of research and development of these new and improved products is fascinating to me.
Most of the credible brands spend a substantial amount of time and money making sure these innovations work before you and I ever get a chance to try them. Egg on your face in the fishing world could be hard to overcome, and for that reason I believe we anglers are luckier than other sports or hobbies where “new and improved” is simply a packaging concept. I recently heard about an R & D effort that Berkley Fishing took on as a means for ensuring that some of their new-and-improved product launches for the coming year would be foolproof prior to putting these innovations on the shelf.
I’m talking about BIG bass tested. Big bass, as in 10 to 15 pounds BIG. If you watch where these guys test their products, you’ll soon discover that they have long since figured out the most productive big bass spots on the planet. They show up there with four of five Bassmaster Elite Series anglers, engineers, photographers and PR guys, and they better catch fish. They can’t afford to fool around. They have to produce data, and that means catching a lot of fish and a lot of big fish. Want to know a little secret? Like “Where do they go?” I have it from a reliable source that the Berkley Fishing entourage was recently seen in El Salto, Mexico at Billy Chapman Jr.’s World Famous Angler’s Inn.
If you’re not familiar with Angler’s Inn and El Salto, Mexico, I’m happy to let you in on this well-kept secret. Year in year out, day in day out there are more big bass caught on El Salto than anywhere else in the world. Anglers of all levels catch 10 pounders and 15 pounders every day. Come rain or shine this lake produces monsters, and when I hear that Berkley has its R & D team there my ears perk up. We’re currently poking around and doing our best to follow the rumor mill in hopes of finding out what this group was up to last month. One thing’s for sure, if they spent five days in El Salto, Mexico it’s about BIG bass.
For more information on El Salto and Angler’s Inn, visit www.anglersinn.com. Tell Billy Chapman Jr. that Thatch sent you.