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

No report this week.

Roland “Innovate” Aspiras
Roland's Fishing Blog
Email

Isleton Area
by Can Nguyen -- Bob's Bait Shops

It was very good weather last week. There was not as much rain during the week and the temperature was mostly above 50 degrees. Since there was not as much rain, the water current was slower. Also, there was not much debris floating on the river.

Fishing for sturgeon was still very good last week from the Rio Vista Bridge to Walnut Grove or Liberty Island. The chance to get sturgeon bites at least once per fishing trip was higher than usual. An angler from San Jose and his son still did very well and they got at least two sturgeon per fishing trip. Most sturgeon were released safely. The average size for sturgeon caught last week was from 49” to 80” on grass shrimp and ghost shrimp bait.

I went out fishing on 01/31/10 and got 57” sturgeon on pile worms at the Isleton Bridge.

Anglers from Liberty Island either from bank or from boat did very good last week with many over size sturgeon reported on ghost shrimp, pile worm, or grass shrimp.

When fishing in the Delta, the sand bars is where sturgeon prefer to hang around during the tide change for feeding baby clams. According to experienced sturgeon fishermen, most sturgeon bites happen during the tide change either low or high plus and minus one hour.

Fishing for striped bass has been slower. Due to very muddy water, the bait fish for striped tend to move to small sloughs and striped bass follow them. The area from Wimpy's Marina up to Snodgrass Slough is very good to fish for striped bass at this time. Live bait as mud suckers are very good to fish for striped bass.

Catfish, black bass fishing also slow due to the cold water.

The McAvoy Super Bowl Derby will be this weekend from 02/06/10 to 02/07/10. Sturgeon baits demand will be higher than normal especially grass shrimp bait. Be sure to call to your favorite bait store before you go to fish so you could have the bait you prefer to. The target length will be announced on channel 68 before derby starting. Good luck to you all and have a nice weekend

Can
Email & Website

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

Ready or not this coming weekend it’s Super Bowl Weekend both for football and sturgeon fishing.

If you don’t like football you may end up watching the winter Olympics previews on TV. If you don’t, you may want to catch a sturgeon fish in a derby this weekend.  It’s going to be difficult not to be impacted at the bait shop or a launching ramp if you are planning on fishing from Martinez to Rio Vista.

Rain or shine there will be some 1,800 or so anglers that will be trying to win bragging rights to the largest sturgeon caught during the thirty hours of non stop fishing for The Original Super Sturgeon Derby XVI hosted at McAvoys Yacht Harbor in Bay Point.

With the spin of a wheel on Saturday morning at 7:00 am sharp the target length sturgeon to be caught we be announced on VHF channel 68. There will be hourly announcements on the radio as far as how many fish have been caught in or registered with the weigh master. There will be a total of six prizes awarded on Saturday and another six prizes awarded on Sunday for the same size fish. So you have twelve chances to win. Not too bad of odds these days.

The most difficult thing for this weekend is to try and find some grass or ghost shrimp that isn’t spoken for this weekend. All of the Bay Area bait shops are usually a mad house and depending on supply things may be a little tough.

The most exciting news is that we made it through the 7 foot high tides this last weekend. No levees broke and no floating sheds floated away.

The tides at the I street bridge in Sacramento have dropped from 18 feet in a week to a very respectable level of 11 feet. Water flows on the upper Sacramento River at Sacramento have slowed as well from a gushing 50,000 CFS (cubic feet per second) to a more respectable flow of 35,000 CFS. The monitoring station stops monitoring flows at that site once it gets below 30,000 CFS. All things equal I would expect to see that some time before the weekend.

Yesterdays high tide at the Rio Vista Bridge was a 7.13 tide the low was a 4.13 tide. That means that there is still lots of muddy water on the Sacramento River with lots of debris in the water drifting to the ocean. It also means the flood current will continue to be a little slower than what the tide and current table says and the ebb current will be a little faster due to the residual run off from the rain storm a week ago.

Continue to put out plenty of scope on your anchor line and ground tackle. There is just enough flow that it would be very easy to lose your hold on the river bottom and start drifting with the current.

Remember to pick up a new 2010 fishing license to include the sturgeon report card. Make sure to send last years report card in.  It is now past due it should have been turned in Saturday January 31, 2010.

While you are at it, make sure that you put your new green 11 boat registration stickers (tabs) on your boat and make sure that you keep the current copy of your boat registration on your boat at all times (that’s the law).

Most of the Delta law enforcement agencies will have a boat or two out there patrolling from the Martinez to the Rio Vista looking for boat registration and or fishing violations this weekend.

Be careful because there will be a lot of folks out on the water starting Friday night waiting to fish first thing Saturday morning. Be patient at the bait shop and the launching ramp because some of the guys have not used their boats since they put them up in September or October.

Those tower lights that seem to be the rage at the moment keep them dark until you are getting ready to make a landing if you must use them all they do is ruin your night vision as well as everyone around you.

Be safe see you on the water.

Chris Lauritzen

Lauritzen's Yacht Harbor
Website

Guest Report by
Johnny Morgan

We had just gotten anchored near marker 2 on the Sacramento. The tide was just turning from slack to an outgoing. I was going down below make some coffee before the tide heated up and we really started fishing. Before I headed for the galley I figured I would get a line in the water. My Sturgeon pole was not rigged up so I put my number two pole in the water. The second pole is a lighter Striper Rig with a smaller Garcia reel on it. This reel was wound with 20lb test line that I put on when I set it up last month for Mary. I said to dad as I was dropping it in “ if I get one on this it’s going to be a short fight because I only have about 125 yards of line on it.”  

Coffee is all made, I hand a cup off to dad and look back at the fish finder and say “fish under the boat.” I have probably said this a couple of hundred times with no reward.  Just then the pole dips slightly, really light. So I pick it up with a quick tug just in case something is on it. This time I got lucky!

It took about 30 minutes to get it to the boat. I thought my pole was going to break but Dad assured me that it would not. She almost managed to get under the boat so I went out on the swim platform for better clearance. My 125 yards of line almost completely spooled three or four times. Once I finally got it to the boat we tried to net her. Our net was not big enough for the fish and we did not have a snare. While dad was trying to net it the net got tangled in the second hook. I thought for sure that we were going to lose it. We finally got the net untangled. My buddy Shane and I managed to get it on the swim board by hand. After a fairly accurate measure at 55 or so inches she came back to life and almost sent me off of the swim board. I couldn’t bend down far enough to get a rope through it’s mouth without losing her because Shane and I had it pinned up against the transom with our feet. I had Dad hand me a small rock anchor that we had on board so I could try and subdue it “beat it to death”. I didn’t know that they come equipped with a genuine NFL football helmet built in. After about 15 minutes or so She finally calmed down enough for me to bend down and get a grip on her gills and get her in the boat. It actually took longer to get the fish in the boat than it did to reel her in. Sorry for the long winded story but I am still really excited about the catch.

Light 2, about 3 miles east of the mouth of Montezuma on the Sacramento

40’ depth

Grass Shrimp

Outgoing just starting

Muddy water following heavy rains

Double 6.0 hook Sturgeon rig

Not to mention, Lots of luck

Reminder to self.

Get a snare,

Get a bigger net,

Get hammer out of toolbox under dinette so I can beat fish into submission quicker

Get large Vice Grips out of same toolbox to grip fish with.

Get wider swim platform

Johnny Morgan

Custom Computers

3536 Clayton Rd.

Concord, Ca. 94519

johnny@monstercomp.com

Office 925-689-9054

Cell    925-250-5244

Guest Report by
Dale "Fishwisher" Gillespie

Look for Dale's guest reports on future postings.

Dale "Fishwisher"
Dale's Fishing Blog

Email