
Lake Mateos
Fishing Report, December 2009
By Billy Chapman, Jr.
At Lake Mateos, bass hang around rocky outcroppings, points
or places with submerged woody cover, frequently in less
than four feet of water. Sometimes, anglers catch bass right
against the shorelines in almost no water at all. Dance white,
pearl or salt and pepper flukes or Yumdingers through submerged
trees. In deeper waters, crawl Carolina-rigged lizards in
watermelon or black and blue over the bottom.
Brian
O’Keefe, editor-in-chief of Catch magazine,
joined Keith Kaneko, the director of the Anglers Inn International
Fly Fishing Division, and several other long-rod enthusiasts
on Lake Mateos last week. Brian will detail his Anglers Inn
International experiences in an article that should appear
in January. Strictly an online publication, the “Journal
of Fly Fishing Photography, Video and Film” as Brian
calls it, highlights fly fishing action from around the world.
Read it at HYPERLINK www.catchmagazine.net
“If the fishing was any better, I’d get bored,” Brian
said. “The fishing was incredibly good, but it’s
the total package of food, staff, accommodations and fishing
that makes staying at Anglers Inn so good. The service is
embarrassingly good. They really take care of their guests.”
Brian caught most of his fish on poppers with white, green,
yellow or brown and black producing the best action. He caught
a lot of fish in the 4- to 6-pound range. A few anglers caught
some topping 7 pounds.
“We were finding bass around sticks and trees or big
boulders around the lake shorelines,” Brian explained. “When
we found a combination of big boulders near trees in the
water, we really caught fish. Some of the cliff bases were
also fantastic. Sometimes, we’d hit a stretch of rock
wall where all we caught were 4- to 6-pound bass. I even
threw some giant poppers that I’ve use for peacock
bass and sailfish and had six strikes in an hour.”
Looking
for your own peacock bass experience? Join me on my next
Amazon adventure, but don’t wait too long because
we can only bring 12 anglers on this trip. We depart Jan.
27 for the Rio Negro, the major tributary of the Amazon River.
We’ll stay aboard the 95-foot luxury yacht Captain
Peacock. Joe Thomas, a top professional bass angler and host
of Stihl’s Reel in the Outdoors, will shoot several
television shows for the Outdoors Channel with us in the
Amazon.
Anglers Inn
www.lakemateos.com
1-800-468-2347