Going Deep with Swimbaits

IF YOUR TRAVELS should take you to Lake Amistad in the next few months, make certain you pack some swimbaits with the rest of your tackle. And on your lake map, mark Burro, Box, Caballo, Tule and Zorro canyons as places to throw those swimbaits.

The only difference about using swimbaits here, however, is that you’ll be fishing them deep, maybe as far down as 25 or 30 feet, depending on the lake level and how the bass are feeling. If the water is clear, as it usually is on Amistad, and you’re anywhere around fish, you’re going to get hit by what you’ll swear was a bolt of lightning. It’s that sudden, that electrifying, that good.

It’s an experience second-year Bassmaster Elite Series pro Ray Hanselman has felt hundreds of times during his more than two decades as a guide on the famous Rio Grande River