Has This Happened to anyone else on the Delta????

[W.C]

I Went out for a nice day of fishing Monday morning. It was about 8:40 am when I got to Rivers End Marina /Dells. I thought to myself that maybe I should see if there where any nice size fish in these docks; so I lunched my boat and turn on the big engine just enough to back up the boat and point me in the direction I was going to fish. I pulled out my G-Loomis rod and started casting under and around the boat docks when I heard this strange noise, it kinda sounded like a dog/stork . anyway I did'nt pay it any attention cause I was so into trying to catch the next world record bass. I made a few more cast when I heard that sound again "ooorffh" or something like that . I was fishing on the right side of my bass boat pitching into the docks when I happend to looked over to the othere side of the boat an saw this big head sticking out of the water about 8 or so ft. away. I tripped out at first cause I was'nt expecting to see anything that big so close to me. "Yep u guessed it" It was a huge seal about 8ft. or so long and half the size of my boat, like the ones u see in SF. anyways ; it was looking right at me with it's mouth wide open and yelped out again, than went under water an in a second it was sticking it head out right next to my boat."it was so close that its neck was rubbing along side the boat. That's when I heard skid marks coming out of the backend of my fruit of the looms'' lol I said to myself holy #@#$ ; no sooner did i think that , when the seal lowered its head and with a swift movement of it's tail it had half its body up on my boat "i'm talking up to its front flippers. My boat was leaning to one side like if I was in a low rider and I hit the swiches to the hydrolics side to side. thats when I heard those skid marks again coming from the back of my shorts All these thougts ran threw my mind; like am I going to be on that new show "When seals go mad" or is it mateing season for seals again? , should i jump off my boat? no its to cold . or if I die today did I delete all the porn off my computer lastnite so the wife don't find it afthere the funeral. i'm sure u get the picture right? anyways as fast as it all happened I reacted by hitting the seal with the tip of my rod "kinda like a whip" on its nose. The seal gave me a look of shock when I hit it . and again all these thought came running threw my mind. I could hear my wife saying "at least he died doing what he loved" and does hes life insurance cover this? ooh now I can go on a nice vacation , and I wounder if that car comes in blue. anyways back to the seal. afther I hit it with that pewnie rod it looked at me with shock and than almost sad. it jumped off the boat ,hit the water and took off like a bullet, and made one heck of a wake. i don't think he read the no wake signs. my heart was beating like crazy and than I felt bad about hitting it. Wow what a day..... have any of u had something strange like that happen?? everything I wrote about was true only the fruit of the looms where change to protect the innocent. lol

[Mike]

Too funny!! I have had them come up to the side and go under the water. Its a spookey feeling wondering where they will come up, or hit the bottom of my boat, but COME IN THE BOAT! I would have sh#t myself for sure!


Your killing me with the porn line

[Chris]

Wow!! great story, this is too funny. I've never heard of them coming that close to a bass boat. The closest I've seen them is about 15 feet eating stripers and catfish. Was he on the front with you or the back? I wouldn't know what to do and with my luck I would have gave him the tap on the nose and accidentally hooked him or somethin. Were you able to calm down and put a few fish in the boat at least?

[W.C]

Yea! that Seal was in the front with me i could have reached out and pet him.he just jumped into the middle of the boat just in front of the passenger side consel... i have a 20ft 1 Cobra Viper and his Fippers where on the rod locker side.he had half of his body in the boat and the othere half in the water. he was huge!!! about the size of kunew... and i'm not kidding either. kind like a cow with no feet but in my boat. wow !!! that had never happened to me til yesturday. i never thought he would just jump in my boat from the side of it. but he did with no effort either just as easy as can be too. i'm just glade he was'nt horny lol .... or else i would never had said a thing lol I think he was used to being feed by people and maybe even tame. how was i suppose to know ?? wow !! is all i can say now. Glade u guys enjoyed this story. if u have one share with us nut case's

[deltagreenfish]

Too funny...I woulda been saying WTF for sure!

Two things immediately come to mind...

A- You were fishing his fish on his water! You know how touchy us delta rats can be

B- Where's a flare gun when you need one j/k

On a serious note, I would say yes it's getting close to baby making time for the critters. You were in her space and she was lettin you know.

Thanks for sharing.

[mac (Doyle McEwen)]

Now that is a catch to bring to the weigh in at a nutcase event..Never had one get in the boat, but did have one follow me down Dutch while I was in my 16 foot Tracker..I think the thing was as long or longer than my boat..Couldn't out run it, I was in slow water..

mac

[Terry Davis]

To heck with the flare gun......where's the .357 when you need. Just make sure no "Tule Creepers'" are around.

[Dewayne]

In his case it was a Sea Lion and crushed the front Graph. F rom what I remember he was wearing a black rain suit and figured it though he was cute. HAR!!

[sTony]

A few years back Chris Anderson and and I were prefishing together and the fog had us slowing motoring down the San Joaquin.This was before the popularity of GPS units and we were using the shoreline to help us keep our bearings straight. I heard some god awful noises and we started looking around and damned if it wasn't a huge seal, bigger then what you described swimming along side of us. As we were slow motoring through the fog and sitting down it was an even bigger shock to us because if this behemoth did want on board it would have put him in a position above of us which I consider to be VERY threatening. Thankfully the seal or whatever it was just kind of ignored us and kept on going by the boat until he was off on his way. But it did put a thrill into the morning as I'm not sure what either of us would have done had it become a passenger.

That your friend was all the way down at River's End is interesting. I've seen those guys in Disco Bay also.

sTony

[DivorcedAngler]

It was a Sea Lion not a Seal. Seals will not go into freash water. It is a Sea Lion that run the Delta in Freash water. This is from Fish and Game. Seals NEVER go into Freash water....

[sTony]

Salt content all the way up to Frank's Tract is higher then you might expect. It's surely not freshwater anymore.

Whatever is was it was large, haha.

sTony

[Dewayne]

While I agree that almost all I have seen have been Sea Lions, I did see what I believed to be a Harbor Seal in Barge Cove (Big Break) one summer. Of course with the pumps running the water there probably had a significant salt content that time of year. It was a spotted seal looking creature that was much smaller then the Sea Lions. It want maybe 70#-100# at the most.

[Dom]

Not suprizing, but I do wounder why they come so far up the river a couple years ago Jeremy and I were fishing out of Rivers end and we had one on the main river come up by the boat but I think it was more scared then we were.

I have been fishing this delta for years and have seen some pretty neat stuff once fishing with Gary Watts we had a snake chase us yes it chased us . Then once fishing with my wife had a snake board the boat on the back deck where the wife was laid out sunnin needless to say I have never seen her jump up so quick LOL for all these reason is why I will not fish at night on the delta might stay till just dark but then its back on the trailer LOL

Tight Lines Dom

[Steve]

Your first mistake was to think that what comes from you know who is indeed fact. Ive seen seals in fresh water, but not very frequently.

Based on how big the poster described the "seal", it had to be a sea lion. Ive seen sea lions in the American River before. I bet there are a few hanging out in Redding right now

[Lugnut]

There used to be a couple that hung out in 14 mile slough at the entrance of one of the cuts. They used to piss and moan everytime I went in or out, but never jumped in my boat. Maybe my boat is not pretty enough for them............lol

[JFEARN]

Dude...That would definitely cause some skidmarks in my shorts. I often take my dog with me, I'd hate to have my dog get into it with a sea lion or seal on my boat. I've seen sea lions, whales and all sorts of weird things on the delta in recent years. Kinda makes you wonder how much freshwater we're pumping down to SoCal lately. When I've seen sea lions in an area, I've noticed that the bass completely shut down in that area. I think the bass just hunker down when those things are in the area.

[Sacto John]

I had one scare the S*#% out of me when I was fishing out of my kick boat in Whites Slough. I am glad that he did not decied to mate with one of my dark blure pontoons

[steve0806]

Nothing to do with salinity. See http://www.pagophilus.org./harbour.html. I might guess the seals and sea lions have overpopulated San Francisco Bay and they are expanding their range for forage. Wait til they find out how easy it is to catch black bass compared to various salt water species.

[Cooch]

but the stripers, salmon, steelhead and CATFISH are prime forage for them big ole critters. They are just goreging themselves on Catfish at the moment. I've also seen two different Sea Lions the past week, lyin' dead half on the bank in two different dead end sloughs. Dumb sea lions, why else they think we call em "dead" end sloughs! HAR! HAR! HAR!

[scott h]

had one come up 10ft away from the boat once you would think the 1/4 mile trail of catfish torn in half would have been a good clue but I was havin way too much with them pound and a halfers!!!!!!!

[JGB]

I witnessed my buddy Vince Hurtado hook into one while fishing middle river. It was so funny because he kept telling me he was getting bit and finally set into what he thought was a fish. What an amazing exhibit of strength that sea lion spooled him almost instantly and he tried slowing it down with his thumb and ended up burning some skin.
I can only compare it to snagging a moving truck at 35mph, the funniest thing is that he asked me to get on the big engine lol. By the time I was able to sit down and start the engine he was spooled.
Sapp has told me once he actually had one board his boat right on the front deck while he was fishing Whiskey Slough!

JGB