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Delta
Bank Fishing
by Roland “Innovate”
Aspiras
No report submitted this week.
Roland
“Innovate”
Aspiras
Email
lsleton
Area
by
Can Nguyen -- Bob's Bait Shop
Last Saturday and Sunday, was the first time since beginning of this year the temperature was at a record high. However, the warm weather did not last long. This past Monday was cold and windy which brought the temperature down to the mid-60's from mid-80's within 24 hours.
So far, striped bass fishing is still hot in most of the Delta channels from Sherman Island up to the Walnut Grove area. There are two good rivers where anglers got their limit striped bass during the first hour of incoming tide. The rivers are Steamboat Slough and the Old Sacramento River from the mouth of the big river up to the Ryde Hotel. The best time for trolling for striped bass can be one-hour after either the coming tide or the last hour of the incoming tide. Sometimes, striped bass bite during the last hour of outgoing tide if the water is clear enough.
Two different types of lures are shallow diver and deep diver. These lures were made by Yu-zori, Broken Back Rebel, or Bomber. Little spoon is used for shallow diver lure and larger spoon is used for deep diver lures. Deep diver lure can dive up to 15 feet depending how long the line is released and how fast the boat is going. Always look at your fish finder to be sure the depth is consistent. Any sudden changes from deep to shallow should be taken care of by turning your boat toward the deeper area so it may help to avoid snagging. Shallow diver lures can be used in the area where the depth is from six to 10 feet. Try to keep your boat running faster (4-5 mph) when trolling shallow dive lures and run the boat slower (3-4 mph) when trolling deep diver lures.
I went out to fish on Sunday morning around 7 AM. I started at Long Island toward the Isleton area. I was half way to Isleton where the water depth is about 10 feet and my Broken Back Rebel bounced at the bottom river. I held the fishing rod up to bring the lure up a bit above the river bottom. Suddenly, I was pulled toward the engine with a strong force. The drag kept releasing the fishing line for at least 2 minutes then stopped. I set the engine to idle then started fighting the fish. It took me about 15 minutes to bring the fish to the surface of the water. When trying to net the fish, the striped bass suddenly jumped. The treble hook was straightened. I knew this striped bass could have weighed about 20 lbs. I circled the boat and hooked another 12 lbs within 5 minutes. I tried to troll another hour and got a couple small one. They were released safely.
Sturgeon fishing is still hot from Sherman Island to Hood Franklin South of Sacramento. There are two best baits for sturgeon fishing: ghost shrimp and grass shrimp. Grass shrimp is hard to get at this time. However, I try to have grass shrimp in our store during the weekend while others don’t have them. In the Isleton area, most sturgeon bite during the tide changes from low tide to high tide.
Catfish fishing is hot now. Baits for catfish can be crawdads, frozen ghost shrimp, clams, anchovies, and chicken livers. However, the best bait is frozen ghost shrimp.
Best
luck to you all and have a nice coming weekend.
Antioch-Oakley
Area
by Chris Lauritzen -- Lauritzen Yacht Harbor
I wish that all of our days were like this past Friday and Saturday here at the harbor. Friday was the first day of the year that we actually turned on the air conditioning unit. It was that warm and the water out in front of the harbor was mirror glass flat calm. As an added bonus, fisherman were catching both stripers and sturgeon both days.
At 6:00 pm on Friday the 11th, according to our weather system the ambient temperature reach a high of 93.1 degrees for the day. On Saturday it got even higher reaching 96.5 degrees during the same time frame which in turn brought the water temperature up some 3 degrees in a week. The current water temperature range at the Antioch Boat Ramp is in the 61.2 – 63.5 degree range. For the first time this year our water temperature is now warmer at the Antioch Boat Ramp than in Martinez at the DWR (Department of Water Resources) site in Martinez.
The warmer water has not stopped the sturgeon bite. One boat brought in three legal sturgeon on Saturday afternoon. Mike O’Brien, Bobby Ludden and John Ludden all fished together on Saturday then caught sturgeon measured 65 – 57 & 461/2 inches. The fished weighed 65 – 50 & 22 lbs. That’s not a bad fishing average of 56.17 lbs per fish. Mike reported that they were fishing the “Big Cut” in Suisun Bay.
Mike Kennedy of Oakley was out on his 28 foot Farallon fishing just outside Sherman Lake in the Sacramento River Deep Water Shipping Channel near buoy 8 in about 20 feet of water where he caught and released a 69 inch sturgeon as well as caught several legal size stripers. Mike was fishing a fast outgoing current. He was placing in an area I like to call Mello’s Cove named after local fisherman Bob Mello.
The Rimmer boys Cliff of Antioch and son Chris, who now lives in Tennessee, keeps a boat berthed at our harbor so that he and his dad can have three fishing outings a year. Cliff and Chris were fishing at a shelf on the south side of Chain Island when Chris hooked into what he believes was about a 150 lb sturgeon that they got up to the boat when it broke the 40 lb leader. Look at it this way, that if a guy from Tennessee can figure out when to come out and sturgeon fish, the local Bay Area people should be able to do the same!
On the striper front, Larry Saucer of Vacaville caught a nice 32 inch, 22 lb striper on the Sacramento River on Saturday the 12th. Norman Martin of Carmichael caught a nice 26 inch, 7 lb striper while trolling with a rebel in shallow water in Big Break this past Tuesday.
Steve Kowalewski, Dave Rehder and Jim Alexander went fishing on Jim’s boat this past Friday. The trio fished the sand bar near Eddo’s fishing in about 5 feet of water. They meet up with a buddy Paul Wong of Antioch who was out at first light. Paul did better than the trio as far as striper fishing was concerned, but Paul didn’t do as well as the week before.
At this point we are a long way away from seeing the peak of the spring striper run. The reason I say that is that we are still seeing lots of males in the system and appear to still be full of milk when they are landed on the boat.
For those of you who are distracted by not being able to salmon fish, you can think about halibut fishing in San Francisco Bay. According to the reports I have been reading there is a decent bite of halibut near the Berkley Flats area. They are not catching big fish but they are catching quit a few up to 19 lbs.
Chris Lauritzen
Lauritzen's
Yacht Harbor
Website