Mexican National Kayak Fishing Championships- Lake Cuchillo, Nuevo Leon.

I was invited to come compete in the Mexican National Championships this past weekend in the Northern State of Nuevo Leon, Mexico on “El Cuchillo” lake by Jerry who owns “Iron Kayaker”.    I have done a lot of whitewater kayaking around Veracruz, and Chiapas, but never have been in the Monterrey area or have fished here.     Both Emily and Dane got married in Cancun, Mexico as well.    I first met Team Mexico at the Pan Am Championships on Center Hill Lake in TN and Kristine and I hosted them at my house at the opening party.    They are always the most fun group out there.    Incredible personalities, fun-loving, friendly, and funny as hell.    I like all of those traits.    Last year I had some fun with them at the KBF USA National Championships as well.   So when I got the invite, I was pretty fired up to go.

Jerry picked myself, Chad and Austin Hoover up from the airport and brought us to his house where we met his wife and two little kids.  We stopped at the “Fisherman’s Edge” where “Richie”, a bass boat pro, who fishes the MLF events  owns and runs the shop and has won more events on Cuchillo than anyone else.   He told us how to find and catch the best fish and that way was his style (deep offshore).    I of course, would not heed his advice as I didn’t want to fish like everyone else who was following his advice.     It was greatly appreciated either way, however.

This is where I also met Jose’, a main sponsor of the National Championships, but I didn’t know he was the sponsor who bought my ticket when I met him at the “Angler’s Edge” (Richie’s tackle shop)

After a good night sleep we rigged up some of Jerry’s boats in his carport, which is like a kayak shop.    Flying in from the USA with short notice I didn’t have a way to bring my Apex Tyr, so I chose the “Take Two” by Jackson Kayak.    Chad took the Bonefide and Austin the Native.    We loaded the trailer with these very heavy beasts of boats, which is a great workout if you don’t wreck yourself.  It had three levels of kayaks on it.    An hour to the lake and we got in a few hours of practice.

The lake has a park entrance.  Yellow flag means the wind/waves are “safe” for navigation.      We had a yellow flag upon arrival and were able to begin checking some stuff out.    The water level went up 30 feet from the month before due to the recent hurricane, so it was in the trees in a big way.  The trees here are 100% thorn trees and very interesting to play around.     Line, lures, and clothing or body likes to stick to those thorns.   A failed cast has more to it than normal.    I checked out a bit of ground in that first few hours and only got two  fish.    Chad Hoover bet me “$5 first first, $5 Biggest Fish” and found out that I won $10 when we got back to the cabins.    He wanted to do double or nothing, but I held him to it and took his $10 that night.

The next morning the wind was howling and the lake was closed.    Jerry took us below the dam and we fished the “River” which is 2 miles in between two dams, making it a canal with zero flow right now.    Beautiful and plenty of bass.   The fish were tucked up tight to the cover, against the shore and required a good skip and a bit of luck to no hang up as you got the lure way back behind a ton of brush to reach the fish.   Nothing over 20″, but some decent fish.    I counted 11 that morning.

The wind died down and we got on the lake in the afternoon and I got two big fish.  I measured one at 21″ and the other was about the same.    I also got a series of bites in one location worth a couple of limits (I didn’t try to set the hook on them).     One of the big ones was offshore at a sunken island and the other was in 12″ of water on a point.    The other bites were tight to bushes near or one the end of a single point where I got the 21″er shallow.    I made up my mind that this was my tournament starting location.

Meanwhile we had a lot of fun hanging out with the competitors there.    Everywhere you go fisherman are a fun group, but the Mexican fisherman have personalities that you can’t ignore and they take the fun to a new level.     However, their fishing style is not one I would ever adopt and is scary for an angler like myself.   They group up, sometimes 6 at a time only a few feet from each other fishing points, etc..   Nightmare if they decide to follow your and do your pattern!    Luckily for me they are on the “Richie program” which is the local pro who fishes the MLF events (Bass Boat) and fishes deep, and hates shallow fishing.    Richie has the Mexicans trained up to fish deep, so they don’t have a lot of confidence, or experience fishing shallow.   I was fishing in 3-12″ of water most of the time and skipping under bushes, etc..   They are throwing a lot of spinning rods and are not as accurate with the shallow fishing techniques and get hung up a lot.   On Day one of the tournament I had 3 fish in the boat in the first 1 hour within 100 yards of 6 guys fishing offshore.   I expected them to move in shallow but they didn’t.   I was able to get a decent limit for 2nd place on Day 1.    That night one of the guys with a big tow truck for his job helped save a flipped Tequilla truck heading to the USA.    The driver gave him a buch of bottles of Tequilla and he brought them to the Saturady night tournament dinner.   Yum yum.

It was a super fun dinner and I got to hang out with a bunch of the anglers.     On Championship Sunday, I went back to my same starting point, but instead of 3 fish in the first hour, I had zero.  However, I had 5 or so of the Mexican anglers milling around in the trees fishing the same things.    This is the problem with not finding multiple good spots to fish.    There was definitley a contingent who wanted to try to do what I did on day 1.    The best bush which I caught 4 fish on the past 2 days was broken and parked on top of by several anglers who got their lures stuck in it.   It made sense as people knew I caught good fish there the day before, and they did the right thing in going there.   I decided to start running around and find new stuff, but only found 1 fish all day.   Ouch!    I slipped from 2nd place out of 170 anglers to 18th.  This was 100% my fault for not finding a second pattern or location (such as the deep bite the winner had!).

The awards party was awesome and Jerry did an amazing job organizing everything.  He got a professional announcer, who was a cute woman announcer that does soccer and olympic stuff to do the awards and the fisherman didn’t seem to mind as they all got a kiss and a hug on stage as part of the ceremony.   Champagne, fog, and fancy lights created a great atmosphere for their National Championships.

I was super impressed by the entire production, and the lake was super fun, even if I wasn’t able to catch them good on day 2.   I can’t wait to go back and, next time, I will bring my Tyr!

Jerry is fired up to import Apex into Mexico and we are working on that process now.  He will start small with one demo and create some demand there.   I can’t wait to see how it goes!

 

Here are some more photos of my awesome trip, thanks to Jose’, Jerry’s primary sponsor, who flew us down there and helped fund the National Championships!

🙂

EJ