Submit
Report

California Delta and Reports

Limit:
Click for interactive map

Monday, October 9th, 2006

  • By

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: Had a great time in HOT weather Sunday with a couple of full speeders. We did well in Big Break with Senkos in various colors for LM up to 3#. Also caught stripers on jerkbaits out in the river. Mildreds and Franks were pretty slow. No topwater although not for lack of trying.
    City: Pleasanton

    Tips: Prepare to throw a lot of money at Gary Y.

Sunday, October 8th, 2006

  • By

    Water Temp: 62-68

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: The stripers are showing. Launched at Bethel Island and started the morning looking for a few stripers. We were at the end of the outgoing tide so I hit the outflow of the cuts with a Storm Swimbait. Did not take long to get slammed by a 7# striper. Caught 5 from 3# to 7# in about 30 minutes. Caught them ripping the swim bait off bottom then letting it swim back to bottom. Tried a spook, but only managed one LM.

    After that I ran way North to explore some of the more hidden reaches of the Delta. Caught LM well on the outgoing flipping tube baits to wood. Ended up with about 10 LM from 1 to 3.5#. Hit some of the high current areas with a brown/purple football head jig and picked up about 15 small mouth up to 2#. What a fun day.
    City: Brentwood

    Tips: The water is fairly clear right now and the bass are relating to shade. Find shade and you will find bass.

Saturday, October 7th, 2006

  • By

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: Launched a bit before 7am from Ladds with Sonora Bass, Stockton Bass and another club launched before us and all but 2 of the 20+ boats went north. A big full moon was still up as our number was called and we ran north in the channel starting off in 14 Mile with some quick topwater probing with a popper and a spook in dirty water with 0-2' visibility. Had one big blowup that came unbuttoned on the blue/chrome popper with white tailed streamer about 5' off the bank and that was the last real bite to be had in this area. That was not to be the last time that we hung our heads for a second or two when a good fish came off. The spook produced nothing. We ran the banks to the east in the early morning fog as the sun tried to come up, it was a real pretty morning. We moved further down to the backside of 14 Mile with no luck.

    Our plan was to stay in 14 Mile and if we got anything going to fish it up towards Disappointment, but if it was dead after gving it a good shot we'd move south. We used std delta colors tossing beavers, roboworms, and spider grubs at them with no luck. It was dead and we had no pattern established, not a good start...

    So per the plan we moved to the south via Turner at 10am throwing 3/8oz white/chart. spinnerbaits while moving thru the 5mph with no luck.

    Off to Victoria. As we pulled up at Union point the water was crystal clear unlike 14 Mile, and we hit the area at the bottom of low tide with the sun out and a light wind frosting the top of the water in the middle of the channel. We started on the east side flipping the tules and then decided to move down about halfway to the west side and ride the incoming tide back to the east. Had no initial luck on the middle islands, we were the only boat working the north island side, everybody else on the rip rap on the north banks looked to be throwing white or lime colored cranks or spinnerbaits. Tried not to think about what they were doing and stay true to the plan we'd settled on...

    On pure luck we happened to find a pattern that produced. I threw a carolina rigged keeper 082 with a 3/8oz bullet out from the backseat just to have some bait dragging in the water while I was retying another pole. Stuck the butt of the pole behind the passenger seat and laid the pole in front of the drivers side with the rod laying on the railing so that I had it jammed up and didn't have to worry about it sliding out of the boat if I got a bite. It wasn't more than a minute later as i was retying another pole up on the back deck for flipping a hula grub that I looked up and the tip of the carolina rigged jerked violently "that's a bite..." grabbed it, reeled it down and swung. Popped a nice little 2lb'r up and into the livewell. Whew... on the board for the first time at 11:20am. At least we'll get some points.

    Cleaned the worm up and tossed the carolina rig back out, and sure enough about a minute later another 2lb'r hits it with a hard bite from the front of the weedline. Lots more bites from in front of the weedline area, mostly dinks but one fish came unbuttoned that felt huge when I swung it on him but he came unbuttoned right away. Hate missing those big feeling ones. Current from incoming tide was starting to pick up and we were moving too fast now, slow drift was the order of the day for bites. As 1:30pm hit we decided to start heading back and hit a few spots along the way. My boater laid into a 5.6 on the 3/8 white/char spinnerbait right up against the bank in perfect spinnerbait water - trees/overhang/mudline/windblown top - that caused a loud roar to be heard in the area. Suddenly we felt back in it and started fishing harder again. He flipped a beaver into a spot about 200' further up and had a nice one come off, dang!!

    That was it, 4 fish for 11.3 and 8th place and the smallest check. Winners bagged 23lbs with a 7.6 kicker for 7 fish. We really felt like we should have been in the hunt but just lost too many good fish. In hindsight we should have moved out and flipped the front of the weedlines while in Victoria and gotten out of 14 Mile an hour earlier. Hindsight is 20/20, but our plan ended up working well.

    Patterns that we didn't get to but think might have produced something:
    * buzzbaits over the front of the weedlines - saw many jumping fish about 10' off the banks
    * crank the top of the weeds
    * crank points

    Given the final results it was a tough bite for everybody, avg of 4.2 fish per boat with avg size being 2lbs. Have to think that the full moon really allowed them to feed hard duing the night so that they could be finicky during the day.

    All in all not a bad day, beats working!
    City: Sonora

    Tips: worm and flip the front of the weedlines. others reported most all fish came of hard bodied reaction baits in red and white. a few senko fish were caught.

  • By

    Water Temp: 68

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Pretty much a typical fall delta day. Around 40 fish to 3 pounds. Kinda just went on the same run I did last weekend. Started near Hog and got the 3 pounder on a Rover and had one other big blow up. Went to the Lucky Craft crank and got 4 or 5 more, but no size. Tried for salmon for 45 minutes and then up to Sycamore. The bite was definitely slower than last week, but we were looking at different conditions this week. Calm, blue bird skies with a slight north-east wind compared to last weeks breezy, overcast, south-west wind. Also had the big moon this week. The crank and jig were the the ticket. Also nailed a dozen striper or so, but all small. Beautiful day to fish on, but could have used some wind out of the west to spur the bite. Regardless, a good day on the water with a couple of buddies.
    City: Roseville

    Tips: Work topwater for the first hour. Not a ton of bites, but the quality is good. Jigs and cranks are working well. Drag the jigs on the outside weedlines and work them fast. Best method was hop the jig or rip it out of the weeds. Remember, the crawdads spawn in the fall and are very active. The bass are feeding heavily on them along with the shad.

Thursday, October 5th, 2006

  • By

    Water Temp: 65

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Launched out of Paradise Point with my brother Jerry around 6:30am and 5th cast I had a blow-up on a white buzzbait and boated a 5lb largemouth. Fished in and out of Dissapointment Slough throwing buzzbaits and my brother nailed a 31/2 lber on in the weeds. We threw buzzbaits for most of the day cathing 2 and 3 pound fish. When the sun came out later in the day we got some smaller fish on cranks and lizards..Add a couple of Stripers in the mix and it turned out to be a real nice 35 fish day. Sure beats being a work!!
    City: Lockeford

    Tips: When we had thick overcast and even a little drizzle of rain, the fished seemed to really want the top water stuff. Most fish came inside the sloughs..

  • By

    Water Temp: 61

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Launched out of Pirates Lair at 7:00 am. When through Potato and my way to White Slough. In Potato, I had two blowups on a white buzzbait, but they were short strikes and I missed them both. The cold front that passed through made the bass go deeper, so they were hard to locate. I did manage a 2.5 lber in White Slough in 15 feet of water on a Berkeley Gulp turtle back worm on a jig head. The crankbait bait along the rocks was cold. Buzzbaits and plastic worms were the only things working for me.
    City: Vacaville

Sunday, October 1st, 2006

  • By

    Water Temp: unknown

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Lauched at Sugar Barge last Sunday but, did not go out (at least not right away). I got lazy when I saw the weather so me and my wife just fished for bluegills and crappie. We were just sitting on the dock most of the time. Just before sunset, my wife to my truck (she's cold), the weather calmed down like you can not believe so I fished inside the wall for about 45 min. Got 5 shakers and a 2-lber on a red crank bait with crawdad pattern. A 5-lber and a couple of a 2-lber was caught on a silver/blue popper. I can't believe you can actually catch that many fish inside that wall in so little time. Kept a 2-lber for a sandwich. Thanks for your previous tips...finally learned how to fish the Delta!!!
    City: Bakersfield

    Tips: Use shallow diver in red/crawdad patter and poppers.

  • By

    Water Temp: 64

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Fishing on Sunday with my buddy. Caught around 40 black bass and about 30 stripers. Largest BB was 4lbs on dartheaded plastic worm. All stripers caught on spooks. Caught BB on crawtubes, senkos, curltail worms, and spooks. Topwater lasted all day. Had a few very large bass follow spooks to the boat.
    City: manteca

    Tips: Watch for fish hitting the surface. And look for current.

  • By

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: On the water at first light. After 5 hours had only 2 fish on frogs. Started throwing cranks and ended the day with 34 fish in the boat. Maybe 12 keepers total with lots of dinks. Biggest going 5.5. Best five for 12#. Threw spinnerbaits,senkos,jigs,beavers with no results. Crank is the only way to go
    City: Jerusilum

    Tips: Crank then pause. Fish would it immediatley after the pause. made all the difference in the world

  • By

    Water Temp: 66

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Launched out of Orwood in the first hour of outgoing. Fished the south, including a little in Disco. Jigs and plastics, brown and purple. 10 in the boat in 5 hours of fishing, although it seemed like I should have had more (overcast skies all day). Best was 3+ or so, and I caught 3 of those, all on jigs on points in current.
    City: Oakland, CA

    Tips: I'm not very good so I'll leave the advice for those more qualified. However, is there nothing better than a good jig bite? Maybe it's just me...

  • By

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Cool & breezy-Out of Russo's ----> around Mandaviile- Dink fest 4-13" senko & bomber (shad).
    City: Sac

    Tips: Crank the rocks

  • By

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: GOOD REPORT-THANKS BIG DADDY.

Saturday, September 30th, 2006

  • By

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: I concur it was definately a dink fest on Sat as well. Had a hard time catching anything overf 15" but caught them on about 10 different baits while prefishing for a tournament next weekend. Had maybe 45+ fish all day but couldn't get any size. The only advice I've heard is to go striper fishing and eventually you'll run into a school of big largemouth. Go figure.
    City: Pleasanton, Ca

Friday, September 29th, 2006

  • By

    Water Temp: 68

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: What a day! Started near Hog with a great frog and crankbait bite up to four pounds. Fished that way for the first hour and then went for salmon. Jigged up one 15 pounder, but nothing else. Around 10am or so we went back in to Hog but didn't do to well. I then up around Sycamore and that's when the fun really began. We threw speed traps, Voodoos and blades for the next 5 hours and loaded the boat. granted, most of the fish were under 2 pounds, it was still a kick. We even picked up some big crappie pushing two pounds, a nice catfish and a small striper to give us a 5 specie day. The real fun happened in the last hour of light. We saw a ton of gulls and turns going nuts and ran over to them. There was a ton of baitfish and the striper were going nuts. We threw spooks and Voodoos at them for the next hour and got a fish or a hit on every cast. Even picked up a 3 pound bass in the mix. Easily and 80+ fish day.
    City: Roseville

    Tips: I love to throw white baits in the fall. Craw patterns work for me as well, but the white is my stand by color. Plastics were dead. Definitely a reaction bite on this day. Gotta love 5 species in a day. Really looking forward to throwing the Voodoo this winter for the striper. The vibration and action of this bait should be an awesome bait for locating the line sides. Can't wait to get back out there.

Thursday, September 28th, 2006

  • By

    Water Temp: 65

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Friend and I started fishing Whites about 7 Am with top water. Got several blowups but the fish were short striking. Switched to a small crankbait and caught three non-keeper fish immediately. Went back to buzzbaits looking for a bigger bite. More small fish blowups but no hookups.

    After an hour of throwing the Buzzbaits, I switched to a brown jig with one of the new Yamamoto Flappin Hog trailers in watermelon. Immediately caught a 3+ followed a half hour later by a 2 1/2. I was amazed at how hard the fish hit this bait.

    Ran to the middle Delta to flip hyacinth at high tide. Used a green pumpkin Senko with a Yamamoto screw-in bullet sinker to penetrate hyacinth. Caught 8 keepers up to 2 pounds over the next the next two hours. When the tide started going back out, switched back to the jig/Flappin Hog and stuck a 4# 1oz. Finished up at 1:00 with a 2 pounder on a chatterbait.

    Caught a total of 22 fish with top five going just over 13 pounds.
    City: Fair Oaks

    Tips: The three best fish all came on a brown jig with the Yamamoto Flappin Hog trailer. They averaged just over 3 pounds. If I was fishing a tournament, I would stay with that jig all day and fish for 5 good bites.

Wednesday, September 27th, 2006

  • By

    Water Temp: 65-71

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Well today was the second trip this week. Launched at the famous B&M Resort- on the water at 6:30 fishing Franks shortly after. Main body somewhat blown out...fishable if I really had to, but ended up fishing canals. Early morning topwater.....about 8 strikes, and 5 fish landed-all dinks! Started with spinnerbaits around 9:00a.m.-Nada. Once again tried it all. The only pattern I could get to work was tossing Senkos on windy points. Caught lots of fish but nothing over 2.5 pounds. Got tired of catching peanuts, so I went over to Potato Slough again. No dinks today, higher tide and only one hook-up. A 4 pounder that spit the hook at the boat. I WANTED DESPERATLY to find a different pattern, but no go. This report is starting to sound a little like Mark L. from a few days ago! REally lookimg forward to hooking some larger fish soon!!!!
    City: Antelope

    Tips: Not much has changed the last few days. The only hot ticket I can share is that I used a buzzbait to catch my topwater fish. How are other parts of the Delta doing?

Monday, September 25th, 2006

  • By

    Water Temp: 68-71

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Launched at B&W and started fishing at 7:30a.m. Did the Franks thing. Had a top water bite till about 10:00a.m. Largest fish of the day maybe 2 pounds. Major slack tide... Hard to find current anywhere-Had a Senko fest on dinks mid-afternnon in Potato Slough, off the water by 6:00p.m.Best 5 maybe 8-9 pounds...ouch!
    City: antelope

    Tips: Buzzbait in the morning-fun but once again no size...going back on Wednesday.

Sunday, September 24th, 2006

  • By

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Went fishing today with Cooch. Bite was slow in the morning and we ended up fishing drop shot rigs and texas rigs with watermelon red baits. The biggest fish was probably 3# with most of them in the 1 - 1.5 range. If you want to learn to fish better weather you are experienced or a beginner Cooch is the man to call. He is a great guide and a fun dude to fish with. I would recomend the experience for anybody.
    City: San Jose Ca

    Tips: When in doubt go to your special spot and grab your drop shot rod! Call Cooch!

  • By

    Water Temp: 69

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Launched out of Holland Tract Marina about 7:00 ran up to around Mildred Island. Started off with a Pop-R and had no takers. I then switched to a Craw Wiggle Wart and started to kill em. Caught about 20 fish all off the Wart. Best 5 went for 18 lbs.
    City: Livermore

    Tips: Fish next to the shore around rip rap and target scattered tulles. It's important to fish shallow next to deep water. Windy sides are the best. Good luck.

Saturday, September 23rd, 2006

  • By

    Water Temp: 71-73 degrees

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Took my lady out to wet a few lines. We launch out of New Hope and headed for Sycramore slough. Caught a couple right off the bat. My lady hooked into a 3lber off a white senko.I caught a 4lber on a frog. After that a bunch of dinks.
    City: sacramento

    Tips: Keep ya lines wet the fish seemed to be in a fall feeding frenzy.The big gals should be starting up soon. Frog bite is sweet in the morning!