A Month Of Top Notch Delta Striper Fishing   By: Cal Kellogg December 14, 2006 More Articles by Cal

As regular Fish Sniffer readers will affirm, this has been a strange fall in northern California. The annual fall salmon run, that anglers have come to know as a “money in the bank” proposition has been and an on again off again affair with relatively small numbers of big kings being landed by a fortunate few. Fishing in the north state’s lakes, while certainly more productive than chasing fall salmon, has not lived up to angler expectations either.

A couple of my favorite lakes are good examples. At Eagle Lake the fishing is almost always wide open from October until ice shuts things down in late December. This fall Eagle has been luke warm despite the fact that there are big numbers of trout in the lake. Sure guys are getting limits, but they are putting in long hours and serious effort for those hook ups.

Both bass and trout should be on the rampage at Folsom Lake, yet I fished the lake last Thursday with six other bass anglers and we only managed to hook two fish. Trout fishing at the lake is a little better, but your chances of chasing down a limit are pretty slim.

Within the cloud of gloom enveloping the fishing scene this fall one bright spot has emerged. Striper and sturgeon fishing in delta waters has been hot for well over a month and continues to improve on almost a daily basis.

The first clues that this was going to be a banner fall for delta anglers came last spring when a huge run of stripers invaded the Feather River and thousands of sturgeon fanned out across the waters of the west delta.

As usual, most of these gamefish disappeared during the summer months, but have now returned. As a result anglers are busting both stripers and diamond backs from the upper reaches of Suisun Bay up to the cities of Sacramento and Stockton on the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers.

I’ve had the opportunity to get out after stripers a number of times this fall and I plan to get out several more times before the sports show season puts a damper on my fishing for the month of January. My last three striper trips have been among the most memorable of my delta fishing career.

The first trip came on October 18 when I fished with legendary delta troller Clyde Wands. Clyde started striper trolling on the East Coast’s renowned Chesapeake Bay with his dad back in the 1940’s. After a stint of military service in Korea, Clyde took up residence in California in 1952 and started chasing delta bass soon after.

Clyde and I arrived at Brannan Island a little before 7 o’clock and quickly got the boat loaded and in the water. Obviously Clyde has a wealth of experience to draw upon and he also spends a lot of time out on the water. As a result he has a pretty good idea where the bass are located at any given time.

As soon as we motored out of Three Mile Slough and into the main Sacramento, Clyde slowed the boat and started free spooling our Bombers out behind the boat. “That stretch of shoreline generally holds fish,” Clyde said pointing toward the eastern shoreline at the mouth of Horseshoe Bend.

On our first pass through the area we both picked up weeds, so we quickly clear the lines and spun back around for a second pass. This time we avoided the weeds long enough for my plug to get hammered. The bass wasn’t huge, but at 22 inches it was a solid keeper. After releasing the bass, I checked my watch, it was only 7:15.

After catching that first fish the action in Horseshoe Bend slowed so we made out way over to the Sacramento’s west bank opposite of Decker Island. The bite we encountered wasn’t red hot, but it was certainly steady. By 9 o’clock we’d brought 4 keepers to the boat and I’d lost a big fish that tore a lot of line off the reel before shaking the hook.

By noon we’d landed a couple more stripers, including a 20 incher that I opted to keep. About that time we got word that Bill Crooks had found some good action up in Miner’s Slough, so we made the run up past the Rio Vista Bridge. Unfortunately we got there just as the bite shut down and only managed to hook one bass on a deep running Yo-Zuri.

On the way back down river we made a pass along the sandy shoals above Rio Vista. Minutes later our largest bass of the day, a feisty 6.5 pounder, inhaled Clyde’s Bomber. Soon after that Clyde and I decided to call it a day.

Clyde was a little disappointed with our results on the day, but I was pumped. We’d brought 8 keepers to the boat and lost a number of other fish. In my book that’s really good action!

My next two trips were both bait fishing adventures in Montezuma Slough. I’m not a great troller, but thanks to the tutoring provided by Captain Barry Canevaro, I’m getting the “angle of the dangle” when it comes to fishing with shad and bullheads. When Barry told me how well he was doing in Montezuma Slough, I knew that’s where I’d be heading as soon as I got done working on issue 2524.

On November 1, my dad and I along with Fish Sniffer Publisher Allen Bonslett and Chuck Dunham headed down to the slough. Allen and Chuck were fishing in Allen’s ProLine, while dad and I were fishing from my Jetcraft 1825. After a bit of searching we found some stripers on our sonar units and anchored up several hundred yards below Canevaro’s Fish ‘N’ Fool IV.

The outgoing tide was just coming to an end and our boats wanted to swing back and forth, but that didn’t stop dad from nailing a 7 pounder within the first half hour. After that the bite died and for the next several hours we had several half hearted hits and caught a few shakers.

At about 2:30, Canevaro announced over the radio that he had to leave to do a seminar that evening. He urged us to stay put until the outgoing tide got underway.

“When the tide turns the bite is going to be wide open,” he advised as he headed back to Pittsburg. Well, it took a while for the outgoing tide to get moving, but when it did, the hookups came fast. In less than an hour we’d all filled out our limit.

Buoyed by the success, I headed back to Montezuma on November 3, this time accompanied by Gene Rush. Gene and I arrived well before daylight, launched the Jetcraft and headed back to the area were dad and I had limited. Seeing some surface activity in the half light of dawn we pulled in tight to the tules and dropped the anchor.

“The outgoing is about over. We’ll fish here until the tide changes,” I said, baiting the rods with fresh shad.

Five minutes later a fish picked up Gene’s bait and took off on a sustained run. Gene was into his first-ever striper and it was a good one. Several tense minutes later the striper boiled to the surface off the starboard side and I scooped it into the net. I guessed the fish to be about 12 pounds at the time, but in looking at the photos later I think it probably weighed a few pounds more.

When the outgoing tide slowed, the bite tapered off, but we still had plenty of action throughout the day. I broke off a big fish and Gene missed the hook set on a fish that took off with the bait on a hot run.

We brought 10 bass to the boat and kept 2. All of the boats fishing around us including Barry Canevaro, his wife Diana and Larry Zunino of Reno experienced similar results, with everyone landing keepers. Big fish of the day, a 25 pounder, was caught on Larry’s boat.

Next week I’m off to the delta again, this time on an overnight adventure in search of both stripers and sturgeon…