California Delta and Reports

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Sunday, June 13th, 2021

  • Report: Postby HappyDogBassFishing » Sun Jun 13, 2021 1:22 pm

    Had a good bite last week on the bladed jig. Lots of 3 to 4 pound bass, plus one that almost went 8 pounds. I was fishing ledges where the shallow 2-3 foot flat drops off into 8 to 12 feet of water. Top-water action was decent for smaller keeper fish under 3 pounds. Tons of stripers (15 to 19 inch range) and smaller bass were up on the flats. Next week will be a cooker out there...stay hydrated and good luck.

Friday, May 14th, 2021

  • Report: by WB Staff » Fri May 14, 2021 4:20 am

    IMG_0510.jpg

    Donny in Oakley

    Report: Hit the water in the afternoon for some after work action. The wind was howling out of the west and there was a high incoming tide. Started off with reaction baits in the front of the boat and shaking worms in the back. Noticed the water color was getting dirtier as the water came up and the wind continued to blow. Needed to make a move to where there was less water flow and a more protected area, so went into the Central Delta.

    Stuck to reactions baits, but no go. Picked up a flippin' stick and went to work.Water color wasn't any better and what I thought was protected was blown out.

    Moved again to a south facing bank, again hoping for some wind protection. It was a little better. Flipped D-Bombs and threw a dropshot to get a few around the hydrilla. Nothing too big. They came out of 3ft.

    No matter how many years or decades you've spent on the Delta, if you're not in tune, it can be a new lesson every time... or maybe it's just me.

Sunday, May 9th, 2021

  • Report: From Alan Fong at Fisherman's Warehouse Megastore Sacramento. If you want to talk fishing, you know where to go to find him!...

    Finally got out to the Delta on Thursday with Chris, a buddy of mine for years.

    It was blowing very hard so we stayed in Minor Slough but we caught some nice bass on blades and Senkos.

    Most of the bass are post spawn now so I'm finding them in little more current.

    Finally around 11 am I stuck this seven pounder on a Senko.

    Considering a windy day it was pretty good and lots fun fishing with Chris. Used to fish a lot with him until he moved to Oregon. Chris bought a ghost, 2 HDS 12 lives from FW so I took him out to set them up n teach him how they work.

    For those going out this week the bass in the North Delta are post spawn and are moving into current. When the wind blows throw blades in grass on flats and look for areas that are in 2 to 8 feet of water!

    There are also some bass under the mats so throw frogs and then turn around and punch the mats.

    For those of you that don't know Chris. He used to travel and fish the west coast. He is the 2010 WON Bass U.S. Open AAA chamption.

Saturday, April 10th, 2021

  • Report: From Alan Fong at Fisherman's Warehouse Sacramento

    Fished the north delta yesterday with Ryan Peterson good friend of mine. Started off slow as we only caught a couple in the morning. Water was over 60* but the fish were not cooperating. I decided to start fishing very slowly with a 6" senko
    and started to catch fish. We quit at 1 pm which is early for me with a 18# limit! So it ended up being an ok day! Some of these fish were spawned out!

Friday, February 26th, 2021

  • Report: by StanL » Fri Feb 26, 2021

    For the first time this year, my buddy Earl Dalton and I made our way down to the river to start looking around for some up coming tournaments we will be fishing in.

    We put in at Ladd’s and the first thing we noticed was the tanic water color. The surface temperature was 54° degrees.

    With that being said, we started hitting some spots off the main channel with reaction baits, but after about 2 hours and 4 spots later we still had no bites. We decided to slow way down and Earl finally got a bite on a Yamamoto Senko, pitching it on some scattered tules. After that, we decided to run that pattern for around Mildred and ended up catching 7 fish for the day. They all came from scattered tules on flats.

    I talked to Lorenzo Rossetti that was out with his son, Lucca the same day and he said they caught a few nice fish ones. I hope this helps.

    Good luck fishing
    StanL

Tuesday, December 1st, 2020

  • Report: by floater » Tue Dec 01, 2020 3:09 am

    We caught over 20 stripers recently by boat. About 1/3 shakers & the rest keepers. Topwater in the mornin and 15 to 25ft when the sun is overhead. Mainly on north side of False River above Franks, False River near Big Break, Santa Clara shoal, and San Andreas shoal on the SJ River. Except for fishing over the shoals, we were always looking for steep sloping shores (bluff walls) with deep water nearby during the day. Unlike bass fishing, stripers are always on the move. Meaning you gotta keep moving to different locations all day. We probably hit 25 spots besides those above. We got most of our bites wherever there was moving current. Hope that helps.

Monday, November 2nd, 2020

  • Water Temp: Morning 58% Afternoon 60%

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Found fish starting to pull off the banks and into deeper water-six to eight feet deep. Jerk baits still working well for lots of small fish. Bigger fish comming on 6in. Sinkos-not great fishing but slow and steady-average 6 hour day has been producing 25 fish. 15 dinks-5 just keepers-5 fish between 2 and 3 lbs. Seeing lots of big fish cruising but they have not been takers for me. P.S. Docks have been productive-Punch bite OK-no top water action for me-good luck.

    Tips: Water clarity is close to 10 feet so make long cast and pay attention to boat position. The river is full of bait both shad and split tail so I'm going to start trying to match the hatch a little more.

Wednesday, October 21st, 2020

  • Water Temp: 67-68%

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Fished the central Delta. Slow but steady. Short bite windows that are productive between lots of looking. Punching and dock fishing drop shots and wacky sinkos has been my go to. You must wade through small fish but a good supply of 2 to 3 lb. fish will follow.-no toads but I have missed a couple of punch bites that may have tured my day around. No top water bite for me-stayed out till dark and tried to force the top water bite-no go.

    Tips: The fishing has been productive but not on fire-Best period has been incomming high tide-slows for me when tide starts moving out. Bite windows are short so keep grinding and good things will happen

Friday, October 9th, 2020

  • Report: by Fryle » Fri Oct 09, 2020 1:10 pm

    I was out yesterday as well 7-12pm and caught them on walking baits and senkos. Tried chatter, spinner, flipping the grass on low tide, and frogging but nothing on that. Walking bait seemed to be the only thing working, the smaller baits as well as 3lb on the larger strike king mega dawg.

  • Report: by Dan Dunsford » Fri Oct 09, 2020 8:16 am

    We fished the Delta yesterday (10/8). The reaction baits didn't work for us except for a couple small ones. We did our best on 6" senkos. However it was still a tough bite. Water temp was 71 degrees, still warm for a fall bite. Just my two cents.

Saturday, September 26th, 2020

  • By

    Report: Here's a Delta report... after a couple tough weeks on the Motherlode lakes, my son and I decided to take a trip down to the Delta.
    We put in at Paradise point on Friday and noticed the surface temperature was 71° and the water was slightly stained. I started throwing a topwater bait with no luck, but my son, Brian immediately started catching a lot of small fish. He was throwing a Yamamoto Senko on a Frenzy Baits Wack-a-Sack.
    We made our way to the middle Delta and we figured out the bigger fish came on current points with water pushing on them, when I say bigger I mean 2lb + fish, so we decided to fish the River Rat tournament out of B&W on  Saturday.
    On Saturday, we stayed in the middle Delta concentrating on any kind of points that had current pushing on them... weed  points ,tule points, rock points ,etc. We caught fish on all of them. It just had to have moving water on them.
    On Saturday we cought 9 keepers on 5” green pumpkin Senkos with the wack-a-sack and 3 fish pitching a 1/2 oz Bass Union heavy cover flipping Jig with a craw trailer. For both techniques we used Gamma braid with a Gamma fluorocarbon leader.
    We finished in 4th place and I had a great time fishing with my son.
    I hope this helps.
    Good luck fishing.
    Stan L

Thursday, September 10th, 2020

  • Water Temp: *74

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: The Delta has been fair but steady if you'te willing to work. Been fishing the central Delta-worms and punch bite is fair to good on the high out going tide-first 2 hours after ebb high has been my best action-T/rig worms and punching beavers has been the ticket. Top water has been tough with mostly small fish responding. No takers on Chatterbaits or other reaction baits. If you need action take out the spinning rod and tie on a white fluke for lots of dinks.

    Tips: Keep your baits in the shade and be persistent. 6in. kut tail worms in standard colors should do the trick.

Wednesday, August 19th, 2020

  • Water Temp: 78-79

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Launched at Paradise about 6am (high tide) and waited for the sun to rise. Worked the inside rockwall that parallels Disappointment heading toward King's... picked up a lot of dinks and almost-keepers working plastics (Ned, Neko, dropshot, wacky senko). Was curious about the crank bite so threw a chrome/blue floating rat-l-trap and immediately was bit by a 1.5lber. Wondered if this was just a fluke so kept throwing it and caught 2 more along the rip rap wall. Then it stopped. Decided to go back to plastics and decided to try some Yamamoto Mermaids I thought I'd take a chance on. I got bit on every cast but was a mixture of 8-10"ers and a couple of 1lbers, but they were likin' the mermaid (I was using Okeechobee Craw and Wtrmln/Lt Wtrmln Blk Red Lami) ... they like em both. But I gotta say they are fragile baits and as with most Yamamoto baits, 'spensive as heck!! The bait stealers would hack off the claws and even chomp em in half. I didn't care at the time because I just wanted fish on the hook and they were working. Made a run to White Slough and continued with the neds and t-rigged mermaids, catching better keepers but nothing over 2.5lbs. Decent day but can't wait for the lipless crank bite. Maybe Oct/Nov? I don't actually know but that's what most of the tourney guys tell me.

    Tips: Not qualified to give tips but I'll tell you what put fish on the hook for us this day... I looked for pockets in the weed and veggie mats and also threw to the tules and worked em outward into the weed mats. Depth was 3-12 feet. Neds worked early on using Junebug, PB&J, and MMIII then I switched to the mermaids. Started with the Wtrmln/Lt Wtrmln Blk Red Lami color and ran out after catching and bait stealers tearing em up. Switched to Okeechobee Craw color and the bite frequency increased...maybe just got lucky in the area we tried on White Slough. Anyways, they're fish catchers but not sure i wanna spend Yamamoto $$$s ... gonna try the Cowboy next and will have another bag of Mermaids, but likely will stick with SK Rage and Menace.... they work too! Maybe concentrate on punching next time out.

Friday, July 3rd, 2020

  • Report: by HappyDogBassFishing » Fri Jul 03, 2020 7:37 pm

    Here is my last week of June fishing report. Overall the fishing was fun even though I did not find tournament winning sized fish. I was able to put a few limits around 15 or 16 pounds throwing the usual stuff: walking baits, buzzbaits, bladed jigs, punching, etc. Once in a while I found them school up and could pick off a few in the same spot. So fishing fast until the bites came and then staying on them paid off.

Thursday, July 2nd, 2020

  • By

    Water Temp: 72 to 76

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: I fished the Central Delta area yesterday and caught 36 bass. Our best five might have gone 7 pounds. Yes! Out of 36 bass, plus the 24 my partner caught, about 90 percent were under 12 inches. We fished rip-rap as well as tullie islands and points, and whatever. No hits on the frog but I did catch one on a wopper plopper, nothing on a swim jig, and two or three on a chatterbait, and a few on a drop shot. Everything else was on the good old senko. My best fish was 3.68 pounds and there were maybe five more that were between 12 and 13 inches. It seemed a little unusual with that many dinks but we still had a good time because of all the action.

Friday, June 26th, 2020

  • Water Temp: 74-76

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Launched Paradise @545am, first time back on the delta since the "stay home" thing. Decided to just start fishing the tules along Disappointment... picked up a few almost keepers to 1 pounders on dropshot, senko-type, ned, and a couple blow-ups but no hookup on buzzbait...nothing on the squarebills til we ran into lots of stripers (shakers) boiling every couple hundred yards. Fun gettin' bit on the cranks with a lot of 17"ers but no keeper stripers. Headed down to the San Joaquin / Tinsley, picked up a few more stripers and a few 1 and 2 lbers on squarebill, senko-type sticks, and neds. Moved out to the main river and fished the banks of the San Joaquin picking up a few more 1 lbers on same variety of baits. Since it was Friday, wanted to beat the traffic so moved back up and fished Disappointment in various spots leading back to Paradise. Lost a nice one, don't have a clue on size/weight, but it bit my white jackhammer chatterbait and then the #$%^&ing FG knot came undone...same leader I had caught several on the cranks. Found the jackhammer in about 5ft on a tule point so was able to get it back. I'm done with FG... going back to Alberto, Albright, and Double Uni knots for joining my leaders but to perfectly honest, gonna do away with fluoro leaders as I never had problems using straight braid prior to trying leaders...only reason I went to leaders is because everyone kept saying I ought to. Well I found no difference except losing a few fish and if it was my joining knot on the FG, then fine, I admit it so I'll just eliminate that single point of failure by not using an FG anymore...never had failure on double-uni, albright, or alberto.

    Tips: Not qualified to offer tips but plastics on dropshot, wacky, ned, and neko, squarebills using stop and go retrieve (lots of hits on the pause), and a few on swim senkos worked for us in 5-12 ft water.

Wednesday, June 17th, 2020

  • By

    Water Temp: 69 to 71

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Buddy Doug and I planned a trip to the Delta today. He was at my house about 5:15 AM and we discussed "go or not go" because of the wind but we decided to go. Glad we did. Wind was a bitch and I lost my shade giving large-brim hat, but Doug got his personal best at 6 1/2 lbs and 22 inches, while I got two that were right at 4 lbs. There were just a few other fish but our best five would have been near 16 lbs. I threw a lot of different baits but Senkos saved the day for us. I know the heading shows Almaden Lake but I did not see the Delta listed at all.

    Tips: Most bites came from tule clumps and under irregation pipes. Plain rip-rap produced very few bites.

Saturday, May 30th, 2020

  • Water Temp: 70

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: My son and I fished out of Russo's Marina while the wind had dropped off for a few hours. We did get caught in the rain but that just fired up the bite. We headed to the back of Franks track, found an area out of the wind and started tossing a Green Shaky Head with a watermelon or Green Pumpkin 6 inch senko with a tail. We caught 22 decent sized fish with the biggest just under 3lbs. So much fun and so happy to be back on the water.

Friday, May 15th, 2020

  • Water Temp: 69

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Went out to fish incoming tide got on about 8am, wind was steady most of day 8-10 mp, water was clear but wind helped provide cover. Not the best day but found a solid spinnerbait bite around noon fishing over tall grass an cover. Had a couple bites on the senko fishing tooley edges. Frog but should be picking up

    Tips: Launches are busy almost everyday, plan accordingly

Thursday, May 7th, 2020

  • Report: by StanL » Thu May 07, 2020 9:03 pm

    My wife Kelly and I got out on the Delta last week and did some looking around.
    I’m starting to get ready for the WWBT tournament in June hopefully. The fishing in general was pretty tough. The Surface temperature wasaround 70degrees and most of the Delta is as clear as a swimming pool. It was not what I was expecting.

    We saw a lot of fish on beds but we weren't looking to target those fish. We were trying to figure out a pattern. After a lot of different baits, the Senko seemed to be the only thing that we could get bit on with any consistency. Every fish we caught was on a Senko and it was at the end of fairly long cast after we just let it set there. Most of the fish came on flats with sparse tules.

    I hope this helps good luck fishing and most of all be safe!!

    One more thing I’m seeing a few tackle stores like Fisherman‘s Warehouse and Hook'd in Ione are reopening and being a small business owner myself, please do what you can to support local business.
    Thanks!!
    Stan