Fishing CA Delta September 24

[AKBASSFISHING]

California Delta 9/24/2018
Water Temp 68 - 71
Visibility 1 – 6 feet
Wind 5 - 10 mph

With the new job, it’s been a challenge to find time to make it out on the river. That said, I found some time after work.

We launched the boat around 5 in the afternoon. The tide was steadily moving out. It was nice to see our usual western wind had taken a day off.

We made a brief run to an extensive sand bar. The birds were circling the area, which is always a great sign. I started with a white swimbait and my father threw a large towater. Three casts in, I hooked up on a undersized striper. I proceeded to catch three more small ones on consecutive casts. Then, out of nowhere, a fish sized missile slammed my father's topwater. His reel screamed as the fish head for deeper water. A couple minutes later, we managed to boat the fish. She went just over thirteen-pounds. Not bad for for only 30 minutes on the water.

We played with the school of fish for a while, but then wore out our welcome. With the school gone, we moved to another large sandbar. The area seemed ideal, but the birds were not present. We fished it for about 20 minutes without a bite. Then, we saw some bird activity on the opposite shoreline. We made a V-line to them.

Luckily, I had tied on a topwater. We ran straight for the diving birds, and killed the engine so we could drift into them. We both cast into the chaos, and immediately hooked up. We ran about the boat following our fish, the chaos of the moment was intense. We managed to get them in, both around six-pounds. We hastily took them off and looked for the school. Making long casts and working our topwater erratically, we doubled up again! It was a crazy 10 minute period on this school, that you couldn’t “NOT” get bit. These fish ranged from three to six-pounds.

By the time we knew it, the sun was getting low, and our thumbs were raw. We called it a day. In about 2 hours, we boated around 25 stripers.

Notes

Work your topwater super erratically, once they rise on it, slow it down. This way, you can cover a lot of water.

Finding birds is important, it doesn’t matter if they are just sitting there because they know the fish are there.

[Don S]

Thank you for another well written report.