By Dan Carns
Del Rio Texas is home to one of the world’s greatest bass fisheries and has a long and storied past that much has been written about, but boy oh boy, until you see it, it’s hard to believe. I’ve arrived when the lake levels are way down, so far down that many of the boat ramps don’t reach the water but I’m told it’s still 250’ deep and won’t fill completely back up until a hurricane blows past Brownsville, TX and dumps rain in the surrounding desert! The lake is fed by three separate rivers and has an immense number of coves, points and canyon walls to fish so when I decided to launch my Mahi-mahi from Vanhunks I chose the closest put-in off Spur 454 as it’s the outflow from the Devils River and I didn’t want to be to exposed to the chilly winds of early April.
To my surprise I was spooking fish instantly while I got my bearings and the fish were cruising out to see me passing by as the water was gin clear. I carry an arsenal of rods loaded with what I believed would get the job done and without hesitation I fired off three or four different lures but couldn’t seem to get their attention. Since I’ve never fished here it was a guess on my part where to begin, so I peddled over to a cliff line directly opposite the launch only to realize that it was a submerged canyon and I finally reached the bottom with a drop shot rig at approximately 100’ straight down off the face of this wall! I heard there were small mouth bass in this lake and they love deep cliffs so I dropped a chartreuse tailed, wacky rigged worm straight down and bagged my first fish on the first cast. Sure enough it was a “Smallie” and on my second cast another Smallie so I’m thinking “Hey, there’s no largemouth bass which Lake Amistad is famous for but I’m catching fish!” So I begin working my way across this cliff line when the biggest largemouth bass of my long fishing career comes to the surface and throws my hook. I’m heartbroken and have this huge adrenaline rush because it was huge, maybe in the ten pound range! This scenario repeats its self for about three hours unabated. I manage to boat about 15 beautiful largemouth bass, but the biggest of them shake my gear off and I never boat a trophy, although many were in the 4-6-pound class. As the action begins to wane off a bit I begin to see why Lake Amistad, out here in this seemingly barren landscape is a true bass destination!
I want to give a shout out to this awesome little bait shop called Karleens, where Roy spent a whole bunch of time bringing me up to speed; look them up on route 90. It’s A Wild World-Get Out There! Fishman Dan