Lake Gurrero 1972

[Raymond]

I was eight years old in 1972 and lived to bass fish morning, noon, and night. My grandparents had ponds on their property in Campti La that they could not keep me out of the summers I stayed with them.
On short notice, my dad informed me that we were leaving to fish a new lake in Mexico. Imagine an 8 year old getting to fly into a lake thousands of miles from his home in Alexandria La. Dad made sure we had all of of our rods,reels, and baits together. We would have to travel light since there were two more teenagers and two adults flying in with us on a Cherokee Six single engine plane. It felt like it took hours to get out to Esler Field and I was more than ready to get into the air. The plane looked like a sardine can once all the gear was loaded and I heard our pilot question if it was over the load limit? Our take off was uneventful and soon I could see the massive city of Houston Tx below us.
Hello Brownsville Tx for customs. Some guys without smiles met our plane and began to poke around in the seats and ask the adults plenty of questions. Evidently, everything was good because they let us board and taxi to the runway. Our next flight did not last long since we also had to stop at customs on the other side.
Matamoras Mexico would be a whole nother story my friends. I sat quietly while dad showed the customs officials my birth certificate and communicated the best he could with them but something was wrong.
My dads friend and pilot got involved with the discussion and they finally understood that the customs agents needed permission from my mother to cross the border. Dad used the customs phone and called my mother collect and she informed them that it would be ok for me to go fishing. How you figure they knew it was her???
Back on the plane for our hour long flight to a bush strip in the middle of nowhere Mexico. Howard our pilot had a 67 International pickup he kept in Mexico at the strip and we loaded all of our gear into the bed and took off for Howards apartment another hour away.
The next day we would strike out for Lake Gurrerro in our pimped out ride.
Dad rented a 14' V bottom Grumman with an 18hp Evinrude for us to fish out of, I think it cost him $5 per day. We started off fishing with white touts and it was non stop action until our pre determined time for shore lunch and fish cleaning. I had managed to fill up three metal stringers with 3 fish on each hook that morning including one bass close to 6 pounds. The fish cleaners met us at the bank and started cleaning our fish lickity split using of all things,machetes!! Little did I know, they were also the game wardens. We fished the afternoon and next morning with great success, our party probably caught in excess of 1000 bass. We were the only people on the lake, and very few people even knew about Gurrerro at that time.
It was probably my most memorable fishing trip ever, Thanks Dad!!