Save Our Stripers!
www.saveourstripers.org

We need our chamber members help to defeat proposed legislation to deregulate the striped bass. A Kern County assembly woman has introduced legislation to open them to unlimited take, no size limit, commercial fishing, etc. as retaliation to our efforts to protect our delta water. If you feel this will affect your members businesses please visit the site and sign on in opposition:  www.saveourstripers.org.

If you have more questions, write or visit the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance at www.calsport.org. Note that all fishing organizations in our region and our state oppose this legislation. Our Department of Fish and Game disagrees with the premise of this legislation and is currently fighting a similar attack on our striped bass fishery in court. Your support in opposition is CRITICAL in helping to crush this legislation before it has a chance to ruin our fishery and harm your business!

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

Fishing for Shad is still the top bet in the Sacramento area, however the fishing has slowed quite a bit over the last week. I took a couple of trips this past week to my usual spots on the Upper American, and did fair with most trips producing around 10-12 fish. There were long periods between hits, with only two to three fish per school as they moved through the slot. I think have a few more Shad trips left in me before I start moving on to other species in the Delta.

Striper fishing continues to pique my interest on the American River as the evening activity from the linesiders has increased with the warming weather. We are supposed to get cooler weather through the weekend, however next week we are slotted to have some nice mid 90’s temperatures which should help warm the water on the American River, in turn putting the stripers on the bite.

Fishing for stripers on the Sacramento River is still a good bet for anglers willing to put in time to soak bait. Sardines and Anchovies are a good bet during the change of the tides. A lot of the fish are moving down the system towards the Delta and are very hungry due to their spring spawn, so expecting nothing but big takedowns!

Sturgeon fishing in the Suisun Bay area and vicinity is very good currently for those willing to venture choppy water. The Mothball Fleet and both Little and Big Cut have been kicking out good numbers of diamondbacks, and the fish are aggressive due to the warming water. Roe, Grass Shrimp and Eel have been the choice of bait for anglers. Be weary of wind this time of year, and if possible try and plan your trips during the incoming tide.

Catfishing is a good bet for anglers throughout the Delta. Throw out the usual baits like sardines, anchovies and chicken liver for some constant fun, and to take home a fish fry. For those of you in the Sacramento area, I suggest fishing the Port of Sacramento. Other good areas include the Knights Landing ramp, and Sutter Bypass.

That’s it for this week. My topic again this week would be Shad fishing, particularly in the American River. There are some nice sized females in the system – they provide a great fight on light tackle. They don't call them the “Poor Man’s Tarpon” for nothing. To all, have a fun time on the banks and 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

lsleton Area

by Can Nguyen -- Bob's Bait Shop

So far, we have had windy days continuously for three weeks in a row. It is very unusual weather for the Delta. It was so windy that the wind blew up to 20 mph. The windy days slow down most boat fishing activity. Even bank anglers do not want to go out during this time. The warm days are coming and temperatures will reach up to 90 degrees over the Father's Day weekend. The good weather conditions in the coming days will be good for fishing for boat and bank anglers.

Even with such windy days, Tom from Isleton got 30 lbs, 8 lbs and 10 lbs striped bass at Georgiana Slough on Wednesday 06/11/09 on shad. Other bank anglers got some good size striped bass at the Isleton Bridge on grass shrimp. There were no boat fishing reports during last two weeks in the Isleton area. There was also no boat trolling for striped bass due to very high winds.

Trolling for striped bass is the popular method to get good size striped bass in the Delta areas. If it is calm, trolling from the Rio Vista Bridge to the Isleton Bridge could have more chances to get limit striped bass during the last hour of the out going tide or the first hour of the in coming tide. During this time period, using shallow diving lure works best. Remember the boat’s speed should be from 3.5 mph to 4.5 mph. The distance from lure to boat should be from 120 to 140 feet. During the high tide, the deep diving lure works best. For deep diving lures, the boat’s speed should be from 2 mph to 3 mph and the distance between from lure to boat should be less than 100 feet.

For bait fishing, shad is always the good bait if used the proper way. Otherwise, the chance for striped bass bites will be very low. Butterfly shad is the popular way to use shad for striped bass. Check with bait stores in the Delta to have them show you how to use the butterfly method correctly. Beside shad, grass shrimp, pile worms, blood worms, sardines, and anchovies are also used to fish for striped bass.

Sturgeon fishing has been slow in the Delta area but it was fair in Bay Point to the Mothball Fleet area. Grass shrimp is the only good bait for sturgeon this time in this area.

Catfish fishing is good in the entire Delta including the San Joaquin River, Mokelumne Rivers, Georgiana Slough, Old Sacramento River, Steam Boat Slough, and Cache Slough.

The good baits for catfish are crawdads tail meat, chicken livers, anchovies, night crawlers, and sardines.

The Isleton Crawdad Festival has been cancelled by Isleton Chamber this year, however local business in town are still having mini activities including live music and cooked crawdads for people who like to eat crawdads.

Best luck to you and have a nice Father's Day weekend.

Can
Email & Website

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

The fishing news this week is there is no fishing news this week. I’m going to blame the poor fishing report on the extremely windy weather and the fact there are still so many young people graduating from one school or another or families have started their vacations we are just not seeing anyone at the launching ramp.

This past weekend was another weekend where we never filled up the front row of the parking lot. I’m not sure if I’m ready to blame it on gas prices yet but that’s not far off. Up the road at the cheap gas the unleaded gas is $2.89 per gallon.

If the marina you do business with has purchased fuel recently in the past week or two, their price for fuel is over $3.00 per gallon. Prices of fuel continue to go up and market share goes down ... go figure!

There is striper fishing but you have to go to San Francisco Bay to do it. By all accounts, the stripers that are being caught are in the 18 -25 lb range using live anchovies for bait. As the story goes, the best striper fishing is along the head lands at Pacifica. It seems the party boats are backing into the rollers, chumming the waves with anchovies until they get a hookup. As soon as their guest has a hook up they get back out to deep water and fight the fish.

From what my source says there is a pretty good halibut bite near Southhampton Shoal Light in that 15 – 20 foot of water range with this weeks slow water cycle. Live bait is always preferred when you can get it.

Another reason things were so slow this past weekend was the fact that so many folks went out rock cod fishing this past weekend which was the opener. It looked like the launching ramp parking lot at Westside Regional Park on the West side of Bodega Bay was about 80% full of boat trailers this past Saturday and Sunday. I assume Doran Beach launching/parking area was pretty full as well. If that is the case then places like Richmond Marina, Emeryville Marina and Berkley Marina were all busy either chasing halibut, stripers, or rock cod.

The water isn’t all that warm for this time of year but neither is the ambient temperature. According to the KPIX weather person, by this weekend we are supposed to have temperatures in the mid 80 degree mark. That would help to warm the river water up.

Currently the warm water spot seems to be around Prisoners Point and Middle River where temperatures are in the 66.79 – 70.59 degree range. Closer to home, the range at the Antioch Boat Ramp is in the 66.9 – 68.7 degree range, and at the Rio Vista Bridge on the Sacramento River the range is 67.5 – 68.3 degrees.

The best I can do these days is catch a abalone or two on a good day. The ocean has been so flat it’s a joy to be out in. See you on the water.

Chris Lauritzen

Lauritzen's Yacht Harbor
Website