FishDelta.Com - Fish Reports

FishDelta.com is a new Delta Chambers member. We will now be adding the link to their fishing reports each week on this page. Some of the reports are duplicates. CLICK HERE to read the FishDelta Reports.

Also, for those missing the old Delta Chambers Fish Forum, you can now go to FishDeltaBuzz and participate in their fishing forums. Click Here

Dan Mathisen
Email & Website

Delta Bank Fishing
by Roland “Innovate” Aspiras

The last week was a time for me to step away from my normal routines, as I went fishing for a total of 5 days!

Last Thursday, I bank fished in evening for Stripers in the Courtland area for some good action. Throwing an assortment of lures, I was able to pull 2 legal stripers as well as a large number of barely legal fish. On Friday, I brought along my good friend Brian Arimoto. It seems whenever we fish together, we always do bad. But on that night, I was able to scratch out one legal striper as well as 3 sub legals. Brian said there wasn’t any fish in the water and that I was cheating!

On Sunday, I took a trip to once again scout for Shad. My last scout 2 weeks ago ended up with no fish, but this time, I was able to hit one fish – my first Shad of the season. I fished different locations – Hood, Clarksburg Flats, Scribners Bend, and lastly, just below the Freeport Bridge where I had the success. I used Shad Darts rigged carolina style with a 1 ounce weight.

On Monday, I didn’t plan on fishing at all, and decided to take a trip to my parents’ house just to say hi. It turns out that they were also out on Sunday. Launching the boat out of Wimpy’s Marina, they fished various locations on the Mokelumne River, scoring 15 catfish to 4 lbs. The two largest fish were channel cats sitting at 3 and 4 pounds.

It turned out that they were planning to go back, and invited me to come along. My dad had plenty of rods and reels loaded in the boat, so going back home to grab gear wasn’t needed. Heck, I thought just getting out in the boat and enjoying some and breeze was good enough.

We launched out of Wimpy’s in the early afternoon and fished various locations in the area. The fishing started off a bit slow, but as the afternoon wore on and the tide picked up, we got into some good fish. Most were cookie cutter 1-2 pound cats, with a few 3 pounders in the mix. My mom scored the biggest fish, just before we packed up shop with a nice 4 lb channel cat. Clams and cut mackerel were our baits of choice.

When I got home that evening, Brian Arimoto gave me a call and said he wanted to do some Shad fishing. So, we woke up early Tuesday morning and gave the Freeport Bridge area a try. A few fish were being caught in the area, but the fishing definitely wasn’t open. We blanked out, and by the time 9AM rolled around, Brian said he had enough and left for work. I decided to move to another location and ended up in the Clarksburg area. The fishing was better here, as indicated by the two boats in the area that had nets flying.

The fishing was slow for me as the boats continued with their success, but I finally hooked up with a small male after a couple casts, and then followed up with another larger male. Finally I hooked into a hard fighting female which I had to keep since she swallowed my dart all the way into her gullet.

There’s lots of fish to be caught out with Spring fully underway! I’ll have to hold off on fishing for the next week, as I burned quite a bit of gas. With the prices where they’re at, I’ll have to be a bit careful with my checking account. But one thing is for sure – fishing calms my nerves. That’s something you cant put a price on!

To all, have a fun time on the banks, catch some Shad and as always – if you fish off the bank, make sure you pick up after yourself so the next person can enjoy the spot you just fished.

Roland “Innovate” Aspiras
Email

lsleton Area

by Can Nguyen -- Bob's Bait Shop

It’s the first week of May. This means the windy season has been began. There will be more windy days than the calm days during the month of May, June, and July. Some days, the wind’s speed could reach to 35 mph. In such windy days, fishing on boats will be tough. The summer time is around the corner. There will be busy months for boating activities including water skiing, jet skiing, or water surfing.

Fishing for striped was still hot last week along the highway 160 from Sherman Island to Walnut Grove area. In certain areas, it was concentrated mostly on big female striped for spawning. But in some areas, anglers ended up feeding small striped bass. Ling Liang from Stockton went out on both Friday and Saturday last week and got limit striped bass with the length from 34” to 45”. I drove along highway 160 and talked with some anglers and they all said got at least one keeper striped bass. The best baits are blood worm, pile worm, grass shrimp, fresh shad, or ghost shrimp. Most striped bass bite when the wind speed is about 7mph to 15 mph.

Sturgeon fishing was still good in Sherman Island, to Liberty Island. Chris Weldy went out with his friend and got limit sturgeon 52 lbs and 68 lbs on ghost shrimp combo with lamprey eel. There were also numbers of keeper sturgeon from Bay Point to Antioch Bridge.

Catfish fishing is hot now in the Mokelumne Rivers, Cache Slough, Three Miles Slough, Steam Boat Slough, and Georgiana Slough. The good baits for catfish are frozen ghost shrimp, crawdad tail meat, clams, anchovies, or chicken livers.

It’s also a good time to fish for crappie on either live medium minnow or crappie jig. American shad fishing was good from Freeport Bridge up to Discovery Park. The shad dart, or jig head with pink champagne grub or chartreuse color works best. Best luck to you all and have a nice coming weekend.

Can
Email & Website

Antioch-Oakley Area
by Chris Lauritzen -- Lauritzen Yacht Harbor

We continue to have a very decent spring striper run even though there is very little water in the Delta today (Tuesday) due to a very minus 1.8 foot tide at the Golden Gate and no dam releases in the hills.

As I was coming back from the coast wishing that I was abalone diving with this great tide and flat water I was happy to be back at the harbor with sunny skies and a little breeze going by.

Here’s the wrap up of what is going on in the West Delta. They are still catching sturgeon on the Sacramento River above Broad Slough according to Mike Kennedy of Oakley. He has been out most Saturdays with friends on his Farlon fishing in pretty much the same spot -- if it is working, why move. I’m told he caught and released a 50 inch green sturgeon this past weekend. That’s two for him in the past month or so.

Paul Wong of Antioch continues to do well on the San Joaquin River from buoy 17 eastward using Rat–l- traps for bait. Paul likes the outgoing current the best. One day last week fishing by himself he brought in two stripers measuring 30 & 34 inches and weighing 10 & 13 lbs. Both were males and both were still full of milk. While we were taking pictures of the fish at the fish cleaning station the milk was just oozing out of one of the fish. We still haven’t seen the fat females yet.

Paul is not the only striper slayer last week. Tyrone Barley of Sacramento was fishing with buddy Odel Cross of Elk Grove. Odel and Tyrone were fishing in 34 feet of water near the steam plant in Pittsburg where they caught a 36 inch striper weighing 20 lbs. They were using shad for bait.

The black bass bite is very strong as well. There are lots of fish laying up on the levee banks spawning but there are just as many fish that are post spawn and are active out on the open water. Walt and Marv went out fishing last Friday afternoon. Walt was thinking he had been working a little to hard lately around the harbor and needed a little down time so he and Marv went out to play. Walt ended up hooking up to an 8 lb black bass up near where Paul has been catching all of the stripers.

The river water is not as clear as I would like to see it for this time of year. We had some wind over the weekend and the pretty much stirred things up.

Last Thursday the Contra Costa Times came out with an article about how low the dams are in the Sierra’s and how there could be water rationing in the future. If you recall, I was writing about the drought when we were getting the rain storms back in January of this year. From a water standpoint be glad you are in the Delta. Currently Shasta Dam is down 63 feet, Oroville is down 143 feet and Folsom is down 43 feet. In looking at the current data, is seems the water gods are releasing water as fast as they are making it meaning as the snow pack that is melting it is being dumped into the river system to go down to Southern California.

I happy to report that our fish cleaning station is once again up and running it seems there was a relay switch that operates the water for the disposal that was malfunctioning all of that has been corrected.

Chris Lauritzen

Lauritzen's Yacht Harbor
Website