Plan on fishing the Delta pretty hot and heavy the month of June. I will have the normal stuff with me. Senco, 6" worm, Horny Toad, Maybe some top-water. if I can find that huge splash-it that Cooch had posted a few days ago ( any guess what that was ) What color of wada- jig and trailer could you recommend. Is incoming or out go tide the best. find clean water if possible or dose it matter? fish points or oxbows. channel breaks with current. I am just trying to narrow it down a bit with out flying all over the delta.
What about location ? South< North< or Central. Swim baits Now? and finely what make one area of the delta better than the others considering just how big the dam thing really is I could go on for hrs about our backyard but need to keep the focus Any thing you fellow Rats want to chime in would would be really appreciated.....Thanks in Advance
We've got bass in three phase right now, pre-spawn, spawn and post spawn. Come Sunday, we'll prolly have an all post spawn war going on out there! And these are the most catchable fish on the river right now since we are nearing the end of our spawning season. SUre, we'll have a bunch of straglers who will be spawning through July no doubt, yet the vast majority of fish are post spawn right now.
With that thought in mind, ya need ta be looking at the exit routes, pathways and deeper holding areas, leading away from their shallow spawning haunts. The jig bite is tremendous out there, the Texas rigged creature bait bite is turning on, there are still fish hitting Senkos and other weightless plastics, the Mission fish bite is still there and the topwater bite is day to day and building steam!
In June, when the wind ain't blowing, and the air conditioning ain't climbing over the Mt. Diablo range, that bloop, bloop popper bite in the morning will be awesome. Then turning to frogs and other slow moving plastic topwaters later in the day. June generally offers us some of the best topwater action all day when the weather allows it. If the wind blows, stick to buzzers, chuggers and Spooks for the best Top bite. A browm/purple jig with that 164 Yamamoto single tailed trailer is as good as any on the river all summer long.
red is a trigger color fer bass, hence why we have a lot of red options built into this jig, very seldom will I use a red trailer. There have been times over the years, where I've found a good flip bite with a black jig using a smokey black chunk with red flake in it, flipping in the tulles. This is generally in the middle of the summer when the craws move into hard bottom areas surrounded by the tulle cover. It's an amazing phenomena that I've witnessed at both ClearLake and the Delta. Big, black red craws crawling all over the bottom. When this happens, that black/red jig bite for me is outstanding. It's just a situational occurance for me. In the southern portions of the Delta, where it is typically much dirtier in water color, black jigs tend to work much better. And as Steve Sapp has taught us over the years, when light penetration changes the attitued of the bass and what they will trigger on, switching from black/blues to black/reds, is a key adjustment we can make through out the day in triggering more strikes.
The vast majority of the craws here though, are not black/red. Those that are, really are only one of many species we have here, that are far out numbered by these other species of craws. These other species are predominantly browns, greens, blues and oranges all mixed in at various times. Take also into consideration that the primary food source of these bass in the summer months are the blue gills, which also have a lot of browns, greens, orange and purples in them, I have developed a stronger confidence level in using the brown variations of jigs year round. I also tend to focus on areas of the river with clearer water colors. Outside of that period in February - March when the temps are cooler and these bass just clock anything black/blue, I will stick to the browns.
This whole thought process gits turned upside down when it comes to fishing plastics though. When fishing Senkos, Kreatures, Beavers, Brush Hogs, or when drop shotting Kuttails, Flirts or Robo worms, I won't hesitate to use a black/red flake, Watermelon/red flake or an MM III, bait that is loaded with red in it. Go figure that one!
Choice of trailers kinda works the same way, the thought process is, "What is their primary forage and which trailer best emulates that?" The single tails, emulate bait fish. That big single tail, also puts out more vibration and water displacement than the double tails. The Double tails tend to emulate the two claws of a crawdad, and produce less motion and disturbance in the water. These two actions produced by these two baits, are directly related to the forage they imitate. And that is the basis of why I choose one over the other. In that post spawn and through the summer periods, when bass are fending off and feeding on gills, I use the single tail. As the water starts ta cool, the gills leave the areas bass freaquent. The bass begin to feed more on crawdads in the fall, looking to fatten up in the winter. So typically by October, I'm on that double tailed grub until which point I find that the pork chunks start working more than the grubs.
I'm the kinda jig guy that doesn't believe ya can have enough jig rods in the boat. I'm also willing to change things up and try various combos and presentations to the point where I let the fish tell me what they want. Seasonally, their forage preference changes, being prepared for that and willing to make the neccessary changes on a whim is the key to consistantly catching them here.
Last edited by Cooch on Wed May 30, 2007 1:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
are like any swimbait on this River, one day ya catch a really good fish on it, or maybe a couple of decent ones, or maybe even that career or lifetime day, then ya can go three weeks without a bite. It certainly is seasonal. I know I've tossed the Shell Cracker a lot this spring, I had some great catches, but I've had a lot more dry spells. Now that spring has come and gone, I'm done with swimbaits till the fall, cept I will throw wakers like the Slammer and the 10" Magnum Spook all Summer long, but maybe only 10-25 casts in a day.
As much as bass eat Blue gills here, especially now through December, yer bound to catch fish on it at any time ya cast it. I just think there are far to many other options that will out produce a gill swimbait on a daily basis. Like today fer instance, I was out there with two 15 year old young men who received a guide trip with me, from their dad who silent auctioned it for a childrens medical charity. These two boys had never bassed fish in their life. Dillon shows up with only a brand spankin new Shimano Curado his granny got him fer his birthday. That's it, So I git him a jig rod, and grab three spinning rods. The other two were rigged with a dropshot, popper and Senko. We spent 3 hours this morning looking for places ta fish, where we didn't have 20 boats on us. Needless ta saw, the morning was very slow. I needed an adjustment fer these two boys, and now. So off we went to a spot I knew holds lots of fish that few guys frequent. I see big George and they're catching some fish on chrome traps. Hmmmm...... okay, blue gill speed traps baby! Those two boys spanked a boat load of fish today, had the time of their lives and they never put them blue gill cranks down the rest of the day. I'd have never got that done with a swimbait of any kind.
There's a time coming though, when that rubber/plastic blue Gill swimbait bite will bust open, it'll last fer maybe 3 weeks. You and I will hear about it 19 days into it! HAR! HAR! HAR! Oh Well! If you believe ya can catch fish here on those baits, then I would surely say you should be giving it at least 10-25 casts a day, when yer on the water here. But fer me, a blue gill swimbait does not even make my Top 25 List of baits to fish on this River.
I threw a blue gill swimbait last spring/summer. After SEVERAL hours of fishing it I only caught one fish. A 9.5lbs toad. Just like any other swimbait not a bunch of bites but the ones you get are usually quality bites.
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Thanks for the advice, I have never actually tried it as I am more of a jig/trap/senko kind of guy on the river. But I will definitely try it in the spring and fall.
What color of wada- jig and trailer could you recommend. Is incoming or out go tide the best. find clean water if possible or dose it matter? fish points or oxbows. channel breaks with current. I am just trying to narrow it down a bit with out flying all over the delta. 
I could go on for hrs about our backyard but need to keep the focus 
Any thing you fellow Rats want to chime in would would be really appreciated.....Thanks in Advance 
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