California Delta Chambers and Visitor's Bureau - A Guide to the California Delta Waterways

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ISLETON & RIO VISTA

Can Nguyen
Can is the proprietor of BOB'S BAIT SHOP on Main Street in Isleton. His shop carries a good supply of live bait as well as tackle. Bob's also sells & ships fresh CRAWDADS!
Tel. 916/777-6666
Website E-Mail

ANTIOCH-OAKLEY AREA
Chris Lauritzen
Chris is third-generation Delta, and with his sister Margaret operates Lauritzen Yacht Harbor in Oakley, a popular angler launching spot. The marina also has fuel, berthing, dry boat storage, boat sales & other facilities.
925/757-1916
Website

DELTA BANK FISHING
Roland Aspiras
His fishing experience goes back when he was very young. He has fished everywhere from the mountains, the beach, lakes, streams, ponds and of course the rivers, bays, and sloughs of the California Delta. The Old Sacramento River including its connecting sloughs have been places that he fishes frequently for sturgeon, stripers, bass, catfish and panfish.
Email

Guest Reporters

Dale Gillespie
"Fishwisher"

Jack Chapman
Lovely Linda Sportfishing
President Sacramento
Chapter of CSBA
Email

Dr. John Baldwin
Twain Harte Connection
Email

California Delta Chambers fishing reports are generated every week, produced by anglers and others who are close to the beating heart of the California Delta angling activity. Our reporters are chosen for both their veracity and variety. The makeup of our columnists list may vary a bit over the months, and we will make some attempt to cover various geographical areas in this 1,000-mile waterway system. We also will attempt to cover a variety of fisheries and fishing methods -- from crawdads to catfish, from trolling for stripers to plugging for black bass.

We welcome feedback from our visitors with information on where the bite is hot, or on a particularly outstanding catch. Please contact the appropriate columnist via e-mail or telephone. Or contact me via e-mail. If you have good digital photos* that might fit well with these Delta fishing reports, please e-mail them to us. We try to use virtually all fishing photos received on our Fish Photos page. *Submitted photos cannot be returned and will become the property of the California Delta Chambers.

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WEEKLY DELTA FISHING REPORTS

Hey everyone ... Check out the new webcam at Twin Rivers Marine Insurance at the Antioch Marina: Click Here!	California DFG Threatens to Eradicate Striped Bass In an unprecedented move, the California Department of Fish and Game has been forced to propose regulations which will eradicate striped bass from the San Francisco Bay and Delta. We are asking every concerned striper and other fisherman to use one or both of the following procedures to send letters and emails to the Commission. Please help by sending a letter now. Click Here to Send Your Preformatted Letter

Delta Bank Fishing by Roland “Innovate” Aspiras Hello spring? This unusually dry weather is starting to concern me, as I would like to see more rain to hold us over through the summer. Regardless, mild days and cool nights have really opened up some great fishing opportunities in the Delta. Two weeks ago on the 22nd of January, good ol’ Bernard Kim invited me out on a fishing spree which included striped bass and sturgeon in the morning, then crappie in the mid afternoon. We launched into a lumpy Sacramento River at Sherman Island early that morning, hitting some promising areas for stripers before searching out sturgeon in the Chain Island area. The stripers were no where to be found, and the sturgeon were sparse as well. At around noon, we headed back for the ramp and trailed the boat out to 8 Mile Road, where we found some crappie willing to bite. We ended the afternoon with 10 crappie a piece, and some satisfaction knowing that a couple fish is always better than no fish. While crappie are usually targeted during the spring and summer months, you can catch them in the winter time if you’re willing to do a bit of searching with your electronics. As far as sturgeon are concerned in the Sacramento Area, the fishing is still considered spotty; but I think a lot of that has to do with the Hood section of the river closing to access last month, therefore limiting the action. There are still areas south of Freeport that are open, but be weary of posted signs and make sure you pick up after yourself. I’m pretty sure one of the main reasons for its closing is due to trash. I’m interested in steelhead fishing again; recently I dove into a plethora of online resources and print media looking at some of the new ways steelhead anglers are catching fish. It seems drift fishing is still an old standby on the American River along with tossing spinners and spoons (my old favorite method), but I’ve really been intrigued with the float/bobber application. Both yesterday and today I gave two different sections of the American River a try for only a few bumps and take downs on jigs and pink worms. On both days I witnessed some very nice fish landed by anglers wielding fly tackle. I’m determined, and will continue to fish the American until I figure out a pattern. So, here we are – the beginning of February. Striped bass will begin showing in numbers here in the Sacramento area once the water temps warm a bit more, and of course sturgeon will be available until mid May. Other anglers are waiting for the coming of shad season; depending on our weather situation, we may see some shad around Freeport around the end of March. To all, have a fun time on the banks. My pick locally is still sturgeon fishing. As always, make sure you pick up after yourself so the next person can enjoy the spot you just fished. Roland “Innovate” Aspiras Roland's Fishing Blog Email

Isleton Area by Can Nguyen -- Bob's Bait Shops It’s getting warmer with the temperature steady in the mid 60s during the day. After a series of storms the last couple of weeks, the water is still muddy and there is debris flowing in the river but not very much. The warm weather will continue throughout this week. Fishing for sturgeon has been very good in most parts of the Delta including the hottest area at Sherman Island, and Decker Island to Courland. Cache Slough was also a very hot spot to fish for sturgeon from Light 42 up to Light 51. In general, there are four good baits to fish for sturgeon: grass shrimp, ghost shrimp, pile worms, and lamprey eel. Fishing for sturgeon is getting better year after year thanks to new regulations that limit 3 sturgeons per year per fisherman. In the Isleton area, bank anglers reported a number of good size sturgeon at the Dump Gate, Tennessee spot, Isleton public fishing pier, and the Isleton Bridge on either grass shrimp, or ghost shrimp. Fishing for sturgeon is a waiting game. Sometime it takes a day long to get a sturgeon bite. During the good times like now, the chance to get a sturgeon bite could be once or twice per day. Since it’s very hard to have a sturgeon bite, be sure you should set the hook twice or three times. The reel drag must be checked regularly so it can release the line in case a sturgeon runs for a long distance up to 100 feet. Many bank anglers prefer to use Power Pro line since its diameter is much smaller than monofilament line. I prefer to use monofilament 25 lbs test line since it won’t cause damage to the fishing rod’s tip. Double hook steel leader is the popular leader to fish for sturgeon. Many pro fishermen prefer to use either Power Pro 80 lbs test line or 80 lbs monofilament test line for their leader line with a single 7/0 hook. Sturgeon bite mostly during the tide change either low or high tide with the time window about one hour. Fishing for striped bass improved after the rain with more keeper striped bass reported when bank anglers fished for sturgeon using grass shrimp or pile worm baits. The water is still cold now but it gradually warming up. If the temperature gets back to above 50 degrees, then striped bass fishing should be very good. Fishing for catfish has been good in the Mokelumne River on large night crawlers. The sturgeon derby will be this weekend. Therefore, the demand for sturgeon baits should be high. Be sure to check with your favorite bait store before heading to fishing place. Good luck to you and have a nice coming weekend. Can Email & Website

Antioch-Oakley Area by Chris Lauritzen -- Lauritzen Yacht Harbor By now many of you have heard that the Diamond Classic Catch and Release Sturgeon Derby in Martinez last weekend was a hudge success. A reminder that there is one more sturgeon derby (the Original Super Bowl Sturgeon Derby) at McAvoys in Bay Point is this coming weekend Super Bowl Weekend. I’ll get to that in a minute. My hat goes off the Steve Talmadige skipper of Flash Fishing Charters, Craig, Harbormaster at Martinez Marina and his entire harbor staff and the crew at the Martinez Bait Shop. It’s all about customer service and they did a proper job. I want to thank the eight charter boat captains who participated in the hour and a half long question and answer period there is always something new to learn from them. One of the younger captains said it best, that if you want to learn how to do a better job of catching sturgeon, go out on one of their charters and learn from the pro’s. I couldn't agree with them more. Whether your launching at the Martinez Marina and heading out for sturgeon, stripers or salmon unless you spend as many hours on the water as the charter captains do it takes years to figure out how to fish the body or water you are fishing at. The reason I say that is in the old days (40 ago) there were a lot more fish in numbers to fish for than there are now so you could count on luck a little more then than you can now. Highlights of the derby. There are 406 anglers who purchased tickets for the derby and I believe that is a new record. There was a new category for kids, 15 years of age and younger. A total of 76 kids entered the kids derby. They did not have to pay to play but were awarded some great drawing prizes just for catching a fish. First place cash prize went out to Shawn St. Gormain weighing in a 49 inch sturgeon for his efforts and he received 35% of the total pot, so he went home with a cash prize of $3,596.00. The total pot reached was $10,276. I fished the derby with my brother-in-law Cliff Lane, his brother Kenny Lane, and my buddy Jim Green. I would blame the fact that we did not have any hook ups on the fact that my sister Margaret packed a great lunch for all of us but packed bananas in the sandwich stuff. We spent most of our day around the area where the Glomar Exploryer used to be moored in Suisun Bay. We saw fish hook ups around us. I did find fish on the bottom with my fish finder but could not get anything to bite. The best part of the entire day was the fact that we had virtually no wind or waves all day long. Even if you weren’t catching a fish it was a great day to be out taking in a few rays of sun and perhaps taking a nap or two while listening to the VHF radio for all of the guys that were catching fish. Fast forwarding to this weekends Original Super Bowl Sturgeon Derby. It starts at 7:00 am with the roll of the wheel to determine the target length of the fish to get closest to. That size will be announced on VHF radio channel 68 a few minutes after 7:00 am. Then it’s off to the races. The derby will conclude at 1:00 pm on Sunday so you have plenty of time to get your boat out of the water cleaned up and in time to watch the start of the Super Bowl. It is a complete madhouse so make sure that you are at a bait shop early to pick up your bait for the weekend. Good luck and be safe while you are out there. On to striper fishing. It’s still a pretty tough bite overall due to the fact that the water temperature on both the Sacramento and San Joaquin River is still below 50 degrees. There are a few fish being caught but it is like pulling teeth to get them to bite. You just really have to put your time in moving around until you find some fish on the fish finder then either spoon them or use live bait so you could get a hook up. This Thursday February 2, we find out the fate of our industry as it relates to striper fishing and every other kind of fishing in Central/Northern California at the fish and game commission meeting in Sacramento starting at 8:30 am. You are going to see high stakes gambling at it’s best with attorneys for water districts from Southern California telling the commission why the stripers are bad for salmon and Delta Smelt. The are going to say that the reason that there are no salmon in the system is not because they take too much water for the system but because the non native stripers are eating up all of the salmon. If you Google the history of striped bass in California you will find that it was the California Fish and Game Commission that in 1879 introduced stripers from the east coast as a possible commercial enterprise. Not only did they introduce them once but twice so that they got going. By around 1910 or so they harvested over 1 million pounds stripers in a single year and the salmon did just fine. If you have the time please go to the meeting in Sacramento on Thursday to be a voice. See politics at it’s best or worst as it may be. See you on the water Chris Lauritzen Lauritzen's Yacht Harbor Website

Guest Report by Dale "Fishwisher" Gillespie Look for the Fishwisher's future reports. Dale "Fishwisher" Dale's Fishing Blog Email

Sturgeon Tips: Readers, we invite you to submit your sturgeon fishing tips to be included on our Sturgeon Tips page. Please email them to the Webmaster

California DFG Threatens to Eradicate Striped Bass