Suisun Bay Region: Fall Shallow Water Fishing For Stripers   By: Dan Bacher October 31, 2006 More Articles by Dan

Suisun Bay, the rich estuary where the fresh water of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers mixes with the salty water of San Pablo Bay, has gone through many changes over the decades. However, one thing that remains the same is the fine opportunities to catch striped bass, along with sturgeon and other fish, every fall and winter.

“The striped bass fishing this fall has been good in Suisun Bay and Montezuma Slough, definitely better than average,” said Barry Canevaro of the Fish Hookers Sportfishing. “The fish are scattered throughout a number of spots in the bay, including Seal Island, the Middle Grounds, Honker Bay and the Firing Line.”

This follows a tough spring and summer for stripers on the Delta, Suisun Bay and San Pablo Bay, mainly due to the high, often unfishable conditions on the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and their tributaries. In contrast, the striper fishing on the Feather River was hot for a couple of months as the fish, prodded by the high flows, spawned in the Feather this year.

I love to fish in Suisun, Grizzly and Honker bays and Montezuma Slough– and have experienced some of my best striped bass and sturgeon fishing from a boat in the fall and winter. However, I hadn’t fished with

Barry or Diana in several years and I got a chance to do it during a trip out of Pittsburg Harbor aboard the Fish ‘n’ Fool IV on Saturday, October 14, the second day of the Rio Vista Bass Derby.

“Moving our boats to Pittsburg Marina was the best thing that ever happened to Diana and I,” said Canevaro. “Suisun Bay is just outside of the harbor, Rio Vista is just 20 minutes away by boat, the Mothball Fleet is 30 minutes away and San Pablo Bay is one hour away.”

On the week prior to the derby, Canevaro found success in a number of spots, including Seal Island and Buoy #9 in the Bay and Montezuma Slough. “We caught limits of bass on most of the trips,” said Canevaro.

On the day before, Barry’s six customers kept 8 stripers ranging from 9 to 18 pounds, while Diana’s five anglers kept 3 fish ranging from 7 to 14 pounds. “We caught a total of 18 fish, including the ones we released,” he stated. “Yesterday we took two fish on the incoming tide, but we didn’t nail the rest of the bass until the afternoon during the outgoing tide.”

Barry and Diana wanted to get away from the crowds of the derby, so they headed to Montezuma Slough. With me on the boat were Oscar Parish of San Francisco, Ken Banford of San Francisco and Tuck Johnson. Parish and I began fishing with butterflied threadfin shad, while Banford and Johnson used bullheads.

Over the past year, Canevaro has experimented with a new rig for fishing bullheads to reduce hooking mortality. Rather than threading a hook through the body as most people do, with the hook point either coming out of the head or the mouth, Canevaro sticks a 3/0 to 5/0 circle hook through the rear end of the bullhead’s dorsal fin.

“The bullhead is able to swim lively,” explained Canevaro. “At the same time, the hook is usually lodged sideways in the fish’s mouth, rather than being swallowed by the bass. The key thing about hooking stripers when using a circle hook is not to set the hook; let the fish run with the bait and start reeling it in like you do when mooching for salmon.”

The weather was calm and beautiful on the incoming tide, with Parish and I getting tentative bites almost immediately, Finally I got a solid run on my shad, as indicated by the sound of the clicker. I set the hook and soon reeled in fat 21 inch striper, the first bass of the day. Parish followed my fish with a larger keeper going 9 pounds and 29 inches, also caught on shad.

Banford landed another striper, the first and only one of the day on a bullhead. This 10 pound beauty was the biggest fish of the day in our boat. “Hot Rod” Banford bagged his second keeper of the day, while I released a shaker.

Although the outgoing tide was the hot time to fish the day before, it was a dud for us. The combination of steady wind and an anemic tide – only 1 foot – made it very tough to fish.

Meanwhile, Harry Moitozo, Don Coleman, Jerry Alves and Jerry Jordan were having a field day on Diana’s boat. They landed seven fish ranging from 5 to 13 pounds while using shad and bullheads.

Moitozo caught the jackpot fish of the day – a 13 pounder measuring 32 inches long – in a side derby between the two boats. Trying to get photos of these guys with fish is like herding surly cats, but I managed to get a few anyway with some convincing!

Canevaro usually bait fishes on the big tides – over 4 feet – while he trolls on the smaller tides. However, he bait fished every day during the week that I fished with him because the bait action was so good. He prefers to use butterflied threadfin shad because you can catch both sturgeon and stripers on it, but he also likes to fly line on the top of the tide with bullheads or mudsuckers, as we did on our trip.

When trolling with Bombers and Fish Traps, he likes to troll the top of the incoming and the first two hours of the outgoing tide.

“I like to fish in shallow water – 5 to 10 feet deep,” said Canevaro. “The fish feed better in shallow water and it’s fun to hook a striped bass on light tackle in the shallows.”

The current status of the striped bass population in the Bay-Delta estuary is a paradox that nobody has completely explained yet – the adult striped bass population is relatively abundant while the juvenile population is steadily declining. The DFG’s 2006 Summer Townet Survey index for young-of-the-year striped bass was the lowest ever in the survey’s 47 years. This latest data is part of a continuing downward trend in the juvenile population caused by the disruption of the fishery and food chain by massive exports to Westlands Water district and Southern California.

At the same time, the adult population of striped bass is relatively robust. The population declined from an estimate of 1.7 million legal-sized fish in the early 1970s to the lowest level on record of 547,000 in 1993. The population rebounded to an estimated 1,570,831 fish in 2000, but appears to have declined since then, according to preliminary data from Marty Gingras, DFG biologist. The average of three preliminary estimates is 1,027,555 legal-sized fish.

The sturgeon fishing on Suisun Bay and adjacent sloughs has been excellent for the past year. “After a great winter and spring of sturgeon action, the sturgeon moved out of Suisun Bay because of the high water conditions, but sturgeon fishing is still good at areas such as Roe and Ryer Island,” said Canevaro.

Canevaro believes the DFG assessment that the sturgeon population has declined from a population of 144,000 adult fish in 1997 to 10,000 adult fish now is highly inaccurate. “How can you have sturgeon spread all of the way from San Pablo Bay to Colusa on the Sacramento River and just have 10,000 fish left? In San Pablo Bay, you can see thousands of fish on the graph during the course of one day,” he emphasized.

The top spots for sturgeon in the Suisun Bay area, beside Roe and Ryer Islands, are the Mothball Fleet, Garnett Point, the Middle Grounds and Montezuma Slough. Though Canevaro once almost exclusively used shrimp baits for sturgeon, he now relies on a 50/50 mixture of salmon roe and lamprey eel. “You catch less trash fish when using roe and eel than when using grass, ghost and mud shrimp,” he explained.

One of the great advantages of bait fishing, rather than trolling, is that every trip you have a chance of catching both a limit of striped bass and sturgeon. While fishing on Canevaro’s boat in Suisun Bay nine years ago, I did just that, nailing a keeper sturgeon and two quality bass while soaking shad. Every time that I fish bait in the bay and adjacent sloughs I am always hoping for another “two for one” special.

Suisun Bay Facts  

Location: Suisun Bay, located between Vallejo and the Benicia/Martinez area, is where the salty water of San Pablo Bay and the fresh water of Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers mixes. The water ranges from mostly fresh in times of heavy freshwater flows to salty and brackish during low water periods.  

Fishing Season: Fishing is open year round for all species except for king salmon. The salmon season from the Carquinez Strait Bridge, between Crockett and Vallejo, all of the way upriver to the Bend Bridge on the Sacramento River is open from July 16 through December 31.  

Boat launching/marina facilities: Boat launching is available at the Pittsburg Marina, 51-E Marina Boulevard, Pittsburg, CA. 94565, (925) 439-4958; Martinez Marina, 7 North Court Street, Martinez, California 94553 (925) 313.0942; and the Benicia Marina. 780 Port Chicago Highway Bay Point, CA 94565. Benicia Marina is a full-service marina offering a fuel dock, pump-out stations, general store, restrooms and showers and secured gates. The Marina Office is 266 East B Street, Benicia CA. 94510, 707-745-2628, Fax (707) 745-2631.  

Camping: Three “Enroute” Campsites are available for an overnight stay on a first come, first-served basis, with no reservations possible, in the Benicia State Recreation Area. This camping is limited to motor homes or vehicles with trailers, which must be fully self-contained. Tents are not permitted.  

Park information: Benicia State Recreation Area, 707-648-1911, or www.parksca.gov/  

Fishing information: Dockside Market, Pittsburg, (925) 252-0151; Martinez Bait and Tackle, 925-229-9420; Benicia Bait and Tackle, 707-745-4921.  

Charter Boats: Captain Barry and Diana Canevaro of Fish Hookers Sportfishing run the Fish'n' Fool IV and Fish 'n' Fun, (916) 777-6498 out of Pittsburg Marina. Captain Rich Tipton of Lucky Strike Charters, 707-585-8050, and Mark Delnero of Fin Addict Sportfishing, (209) 367-4665, also operates trips out of the Pittsburg Marina. James Smith of the California Dawn, 510-773-5511, and Jim Smith of the Happy Hooker, 510-223-5388, book striper and sturgeon adventures out of the Martinez Marina. The Morning Star, 707-745-745-1431, runs striped bass and sturgeon trips out of the Crockett Martina.    

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