Fishing Report - El Llano, Ixtlahuacan

Just thought I'd throw a few pics in the Freshwater section since it's been dormant for a couple of months!

This is the lake at the side of the Chapala-Guadalajara highway, 23, at Ixtlahuacan.  For years I have wanted to fish this lake.  It's nearly always calm and since it appears to be a man-made lake there's some depth to it.  It seems very popular with the locals who often use canes and long sticks for fishing rods rather than the usual soda cans!  Anyway, after 3 hours this morning I had exactly 20 carp in the bag and as many tilapia.  The carp were different to the Lake Chapala carp being short and fat rather than long and thin.  7 of the carp were mirror carp (picture below) which are always a delight to catch so I released those immediately.  All the fish were small and all were released when I finished.  This is a really good lake for kids to fish - the access is good and the fish are really easy to catch - not sure if there's any large specimens or whether they are all stunted from overcrowding...

Nice. I didn't even know that water hole had a name. It used to pretty much dry up in the dry season so I guess they either dug it deeper or introduced a water supply. I did notice they rent canoes there now too. Looks like a great spot for the kids.

I took the name from google maps. El Llano means "the plain" in Spanish, I think, which is odd...!
The the lake level is down a couple of feet, like lake Chapala, but I plumbed about 7 feet near the dam within easy casting distance.

Looks like it's been almost a year to the day since I last fished Ixtlahuacan and I still can't pronounce it like the locals!

Bite every cast.  50/50 carp/tilapia but no size.  With plenty of easy to catch fish it's just a great fishing lake for kids.

Caught 18 hard fighting carp, most of which were "mirror carp" like the one shown.