Fishing CA Delta May 16

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AKBASSFISHING
Posts: 38
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2018 2:08 pm

Fishing CA Delta May 16

Post by AKBASSFISHING »

California Delta 5/16/2018
Water Temp 67-70
Visibility 2 – 3 feet
Wind 8 – 15 mph

With clouds rolling through the area, we put in around 7:30 in the morning. I noticed the water had cooled slightly, but not enough to cause them to go into a negative mood.

With abundant cloud cover and a good western breeze blowing, my first instinct was to throw reaction baits. I tied on my trusty chatterbait and got bit instantly. This was a good feeling since the last couple of weeks had been a grind to find fish. Continuing down the bank, I picked off a few more fish, when my father hooked into a healthy four-pounder. With a quick limit in less than 15 minutes, we continued our pattern.

On almost every bank we stopped on, the fish were actively feeding. This pattern lasted for about three hours; then the minus tide started to go to work, and our bite fissled off.

With the tide extremely low, some bed fish became visible. We fished a couple of beds with some success, but these were only small males. Then we stumbled upon a huge redear nesting site. The size of some of these redear were massive, so I couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this. I whipped out my drop-shot rod. Cast a tiny piece of roboworm on the nest, and BAM! A huge redear smacked it, and the thing even took drag. Played with these fish for about 30 minutes, and then went back to work.

With the tide low, we backed out to the furthest weedlines we could find and started to punch. The punch bite was not spectacular, but we managed to pull a few decent fish. Wanting to cover water a little faster, I picked up the chatterbait again. Almost like someone flipped a light switch, the bites started to come left and right. Two’s and three’s started to fly, and the best going around five and a half pounds. As I threw the chatterbait, my father followed up with a Senko and picked off the ones that I had missed, including another solid four-pounder.

We continued to target outside weedlines, and found the pattern to be the same. By late afternoon, the clouds started to have large clearings between them. When this occurred, the chatterbait bite slowed. I switched to my craw crankbait and picked up were the chatterbait left off. The bites started to come in, but these fish were a lot smaller than the ones on the chatterbait. Regardless, still fun action.

That said, I did have a striper steal my crankbait, but I’ll just paint another haha.

By 3 pm, the wind had picked up so we called it a day.

Notes:

The chatterbait bite was really good in low light, but once the sun came out, the crankbait out produced the chatterbait.

With the new moon, we are seeing minus tides this week, which means the water is super low. Don’t be afraid to fish the outside weedlines, its just like any other piece of cover.
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Hearyeewendi
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri May 26, 2017 3:23 pm

Re: Fishing CA Delta May 16

Post by Hearyeewendi »

Thank you! Hitting the Delta on 05/20. Hope I find ‘em like you guys did!
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