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 |