Fishing Report: California Delta March 18, 2018
Our first glimpse of the double digit spring run striper was all it took for three grown men to start screaming like school girls who had seen Justin Bieber in concert for the first time. We were lit. Words came out of our mouths that our mothers would not be proud of. The sleep deprivation, work, bills…Gone. In that moment was bliss. We were fishing the California Delta.
After a slow day at San Luis Reservoir the day before, Jay, Josh and myself made a last minute decision to hit the Delta to see if we could hook into a spring run striper.
It’s a long drive for me especially with the boat in tow to Rio Vista to fish the Sacramento River. It was going to be my first trip fishing the area for striped bass.
It was the outgoing tide, current was fast, water was murky and floating debris was everywhere. The fog hadn’t lifted yet and with floating logs everywhere, it didn’t make for the best fishing conditions.
We headed north along the Sacramento River pass the Rio Vista Bridge and into Steam Boat Slough. The water was pretty low at that point. We tried the location for a bit before moving on to the main river again.
We scanned the Sacramento River and marked a few scattered fish but underneath was littered with debris which made it hard to distinguish between stripers or debris. You had to look for fish behavior.
So I looked for larger arcs near structure and targeted those marks. We found some on the bottom next to channels and near the base of the channels in 40’ of water.
With the downriggers we were able to position the Atlas rigs right over them. We hooked into what felt like a schoolie striper but the line went slack for just a second and it came unbuttoned.
We tried several other areas the remainder of the morning. We went into Miner slough, Prospect slough and the deep water ship channel and nothing. It was beginning to look like a skunk day. Nothing was biting.
Then we decided to go south and try the San Joaquin River. We pounded the levee wall with lures all while trolling the Atlas Rigs. After a long day, Josh finally managed to hit a few dink stripers in the area with lures. They were butt up against the rocks. It wasn’t as productive as we’d expect so it was back to the Sacramento River.
There were a few grassy patches on the Sacramento river so we threw lures and swimbaits out. Right away Josh lands a pike minnow and Jay lands a bass.
We hadn’t tried the Sacramento River south of Rio Vista yet so we slow trolled the Atlas Rigs and even had on live bait. Jay hooks into a nice schoolie striper on the Chartreuse Atlas Rig. It was fat and full of milt.
We continued trolling on the Sacramento River across from Brannon Island on the west side of the shore in 30’ of water. At this point I had about 125’ of line out which was about 15’ deep with the current since my rod was standing straight up.
From behind I hear Josh yelling at me about my rod. I look up and see the rod pumping all while half bent over. It pulled hard while reeling it in. It felt like a smaller fish using the current to it’s advantage. I knew it was a bigger fish but not one in the double digits.
So we continued trolling while I reeled it in. It was taking drag here and there but in small amounts. I guesstimated it was about a 27 incher at most.
As it got closer to the boat, the line peeling became more intense. That’s when I knew I had hooked into something big. With every pull, the drag screamed and peeled. The guys reeled in the other rods and we stopped the trolling motor.
And that’s about when we remembered to turn on the camera.
Usually when we have a smaller fish on, we’d keep trolling to save time from setting up the rods and rigs again for trolling.
After a few more minutes I was able to bring it closer. With both hands Josh was able to pull it in. No net. It measured 36 inches and weighed in just over 18lbs.
To my surprise it was a male striper. Milt spewed out behind it’s belly and onto the carpet.
The Spring run was n full affect on the California Delta. Go get your DD FAm.
Now you know. Go get em!
You can find the same gear I use in the affiliate links below.
–TackleBuilders Atlas Umbrella Rig
–Okuma Cold Water line counter reel
