Fishing CA Delta August 27

[AKBASSFISHING]

California Delta 8/27/2018
Water Temp 67 -71
Visibility 1 – 4 feet
Wind 10 - 18 mph

Had the opportunity to fish with my buddy today. Hopes were high for a good striper bite. Conditions were right, western wind with an outgoing tide.

We put in around 6 in the morning. We ran to a large flat with sparse weeds. I started with a Punker, hoping to get big mama, but she wasn’t around. My buddy opted for a spook and managed a couple small bass. Seeing that the big stripers were not in the area, I switched to the trusty white swimbait. After a few casts, I got a good thump. To my surprise, it was a healthy bass. Thinking it was a fluke, I didn’t think much of it. On my following cast, I hooked another healthy bass.

Thinking we were on a possible pattern, we moved to another flat. Sure enough, the white swimbait produced more bass. We followed this pattern with mixed results, but found bass were we normally find stripers. A nice surprise.

By 10, our bite fizzled out on the swimbaits, but switching to crankbaits picked up where we left off. Fishing the same areas, we found bumping the crankbait into the weeds produced the best fish, while fishing open water yielded smaller fish. The bite was very consistent, but the wind forced us to seek cover.

After seeking shelter, our bite slowed, but we found another pattern. By this time, the tide was bottoming. This actually helped us, targeting the weed pockets, we bumped swimbaits, cranks, chatterbaits, and glide-baits into the grass. Once the bait contacted the grass, a sharp rip and pause seemed to be what the fish wanted. A lot of small fish were caught, with a few decent ones in the mix.

By 3 in the afternoon, we called it a day. Not how we expected the day to go, especially since we wanted to target stripers, but I’ll take what we were handed. Overall, we had maybe twelve-pounds for best 5. Not a huge sack, but a fun day.

Notes

The bass are still offshore. Even though the stripers are here, the bass don’t seem to mind.

Paying attention to the small details is very important. Running the crankbait into the weeds, ripping it out, and then pausing it produced a good amount of fish. Just see what the fish want.

The fish are definitely eating shad.

[TheRockBass]

Good write up! My username I created was in honor of the bass with shoulders haha

[mark poulson]

Another good report! Thanks for sharing.

[mark poulson]

Another good report! Thanks for sharing.