Back story

Falcon Lake along the Texas-Mexico border is a tremendous fishery, but the recent case involving the apparent shooting of an American tourist on the Mexican side of the lake should make folks wonder how badly they need to catch a big bass. That’s not to say that the Texas side is dangerous, but going anywhere south of the boundary these days can be a scary deal.

I’m reminded of a trip a few years ago when I and some compadres flew to Mazatlan to fish El Comedero, a fabulous fishery in the mountains near the west coast. We were met at the airport by a guy in a van, who then drove us to a small town on the edge of the Sierra Madre mountains where we were joined by a couple of soldiers who made pocket money protecting the gringo fishermen who journeyed to El Comedero. These armed federales trailed us in another vehicle as we traveled on to our destination, and stood guard outside the fenced stockade where we and a couple of dozen other anglers from the States were quartered in clean and comfortable haciendas.

The town outside our gated sanctuary was composed of several hovels that were full of poor Mexicans who lived hand-to-mouth. Some of the menfolk guided, some did something else that we didn’t want to know about, and all of the children begged. We were told not to give the kids anything, as it would only encourage them, but we all gave them money, hats, lures and whatever when we left.

Each morning while we were there, we would travel to the lake by bus, get in a boat two-by-two with a guide, and embark for a day’s fishing. The two soldiers patrolled the huge lake as best as they could, and we were told to make sure to leave an area pronto whenever a strange boat approached in case the occupants’ intentions were other than honorable. At lunch, we gathered at a large island for a big meal of fried tilapia, which was followed by a siesta and an afternoon of more fishing.

We fished for a few days, caught lots of bass, constantly looked over our shoulders, and then left. Our two guards didn’t show up the evening we drove back to Mazatlan, and without them riding shotgun we were nervous wrecks descending the Sierra Madres in the dark. Of course, we had been told that the local drug lords didn’t cotton to Americanos being killed by bandits because it would bring too much federal heat down on them. Being robbed of all our possessions was a possibility, but we were assured that it seldom involved fatalities.

We made it back to Mazatlan safely. After we flew to Houston and then points north, a couple of guys in our group were hospitalized with Hepatitis A that they had contracted somewhere during our Mexican sojourn. We found out later that several others in the larger party with whom we shared camp also were hospitalized with the disease. We think it was due to the others eating contaminated food at a restaurant in Mazatlan. That was the only place it could have been, as we all ate the food served at the lake without harmful effect.

The evening before we flew back, I paid for our hotel rooms with a credit card. A couple of weeks later, the credit card issuer called me to ask if I had just tried to purchase a set of tires and a big-screen TV in Tucson, Arizona. I hadn’t, of course, and eventually I got all of that sorted out.

And so it went. One trip doesn’t qualify me as an expert. I know that American fishermen go to Mexico time and again and enjoy themselves thoroughly. Generally speaking, I enjoyed the fishing there very much. Our group did what it set out to do and we went home reasonably intact except for some new health problems and a few depressing memories of poverty in Old Mexico.

Was the El Comedero fishing fabulous? You bet. I took along a bunch of lures that I used to fish with when I was a kid. I caught a 12-pound bass on an original Lucky 13 (with three sets of treble hooks) and no telling how many smaller fish on a Creek Chub Darter. Everybody caught plenty of bass on just about anything they threw.

Great fishing, for sure. And no doubt it still is. Would I go there again now? No way, Jose.