Two schools of thought can be implemented when targeting striped bass on the California Delta. The first is to position yourself in a likely area where there's a good chance a school of striped bass will be moving through, toss out an assortment of baits and sit tight until the fish come to you. The second, and my personal favorite, is to hunt down the fish by covering as much water as possible while scanning your electronics for signs of bait and tossing out search baits such as Rat-L-Traps, swim baits, spoons and topwater plugs.

By going to the fish, limited time is spent in unproductive water and this can produce impressive numbers of fish in a single day. At this time last year, I was fishing the central Delta out of B&W Resort and catching and releasing 30 to 50 fish a day, most of them keeper sized fish in the 4 to 8 pound class.

Things have been a bit slower so far this year, not so much in numbers of fish, but in size. While numbers have been easy to come by, most of the fish have been running 16 to 18 inches with only a handful of 4 to 10 pound fish caught on an average day. Water temperatures are still running in the upper 50's and low 60's, some 5 to 6 degrees warmer than this time last year, so I have a feeling the larger fish are going to show up when temperatures dip into the mid 50's.

My latest trip was with Paul Cunningham of Sacramento on the afternoon of Friday, November 1. We started off our day fishing the Mokelumne River from B&W Resort down to the entrance of the San Joaquin River. On that particular stretch of river, there are several flats with 6 to 10 feet of water that are extremely productive during the peaks of the incoming and outgoing tides. The key is to search for signs of bait by either watching for bird activity or scanning the area with a quality fish finder.

There was a fair amount of bait and fish holding on the bridge out in front of the resort, so we started jigging spoons along the many pilings in 12 to 18 feet of water. I hit our first fish on a 3/4 ounce gold Kastmaster. It was a small keeper weighing just over 4 pounds. Paul hit another small keeper a few minutes later on a white plastic swim bait rigged up on a 1/2 ounce dart head. We spent close to an hour working over the area and landed several more stripers, but most were small fish running 14 to 18 inches.

Our next move was off to one of our favorite flooded islands in the middle Delta. Upon our arrival, conditions were glassy calm and we could see several flocks of birds working over schools of shad. It didn't take long to find out the stripers were also working over the bait. We started off with several double hook-ups, not the tiny fish we had been catching in weeks prior, but still much smaller than we were hoping for as most were undersized or barely over the 18 inch minimum.

We continued to troll small plastic swim baits throughout the area and found steady action on several schools of small stripers. While these aren't exactly fish to brag about, it's still a blast catching fish up to 20 inches on small spinning rods spooled with 6 to 8 pound test.

Having our fill of small fish action, we made a move to Franks Tract where numbers have been tough to come by, but the fish have been better quality. I started off working a weighted Zoom Fluke in 6 to 7 feet of water and Paul was fishing a Zara Spook. To my surprise, the fluke was getting plenty of attention, but it was the same size fish we were catching earlier. Paul managed three fish on the spook, all largemouth bass up to 2-1/2 pounds.

A few stops on the Mokelumne on our way back to the ramp produced two more small keepers on spoons and one respectable fish of about 5 pounds on a Rat-L-Trap. As we got to press, it looks like our first good storm of the year is heading for the coast and that might be just what the doctor ordered to bring the larger fish into the Delta. The next few weeks should produce some of the best striper action of the season, so don't miss out on what could be a golden opportunity.