Fishing Report: Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel aka DWC March 24, 2018

When you apply what you know to a new area and it works, it’s a great feeling.  Most of you know I troll the Atlas Umbrella Rigs a lot at San Luis Reservoir.  They’ve been working great for me for stripers there.  Recently I’ve been aching to try the California Delta and see if I can have the same success.

The prototypes of the Atlas Rig did great over by Discovery bay and Whiskey slough areas.  It was my first time using the Atlas on the Sacramento River and Sacramento deep water ship channel aka DWC.

Last week, my first time trolling the Atlas Rigs on the Sacramento River south of Rio Vista, I landed my first DD on the Atlas Rig.  HERE is the video of that catch in case you missed it.

With delta fever still in mind, I wanted to go back but this time try a new location.

So with boat in tow, John Gary and I launched out of Rio Vista and took the 30 mile boat ride up the DWC.

The past few days the area had been drenched in heavy rain.  This made the Sacramento River stained and full of debris. 

The DWC is a dead end waterway.  It was much clearer the deeper you went and had little to no debris.

The Sacramento deep water ship channel us used for giant cargo boats to transport goods.  The channel is 30′-40’ deep on average. 

The only boat ramp that has easy access to the area is owned by the Washington Outboard Club.  Only members have access to it.  That leaves the rest of us boaters with a LONG trip up the channel to get to this location.

Kayakers or carry over boats can launch here with ease.

It took us just over an hour dodging debris on the Sacramento river and going up the deep water channel before we got to the location.  We started trolling the Atlas Rigs right before the bend to the cargo ship docks.

I’m new to the area.  This is actually my first time fishing here.  To get a feel for the area I started off by zigzagging across the channel to scan the bottom and see where the fish were hiding. 

We used the Atlas Rig with several colors tied on: White, Shad and chartreuse to see what color was hitting the most.

Gary had on the first fish with the chartreuse Atlas Rig.  We were right over the edge of the channel at the time.  We continued to troll along the bend and towards the cargo ship docks.  We were catching fish in that stretch.  Most came off the chartreuse colored Atlas Rig.

 

What we weren’t expecting was boating traffic.  It seemed there was a rowing competition at the time.  Row boats were everywhere.  It made fishing tougher because you couldn’t maneuver much.  One of the boats almost ran into us while we were stopped.  Luckily I was able to reverse in time.

We left the boating traffic and moved back south towards the bend.  We caught a few more striped bass in the area before moving on.  The majority of our catches were along the channel edges when we had our Atlas Rigs 12’-15’ deep. 

We didn’t need downriggers or anything to drop them deeper.  One Atlas Rig was trolled near the bottom but we had no luck at that depth.  We let out 100′-150’ of line with rods raised high and that achieved the depths we needed going at 2.0-2.5mph.

As the morning progressed, you can see a change in the striper bite.  In the early mornings, we had multiple striped bass with shorter strikes.  Most were hooked near the lip of the mouth. 

As the day went on, the stripers got more active and they started choking on the swimbaits.  That’s when the other colors started working too and less on the chartreuse.

The bite wasn’t hot but it was consistent.  The best color to use was chartreuse.  We had stripers hit the shad and white but the majority came off the chartreuse on the Atlas Rig.  We caught 10 schoolie stripers on the trip to 22”.  Not bad for first timers.

Here’s the video of how the bite was that day.

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 

–Daiwa Wilderness Trolling Rod 

–Scotty 1101 Downrigger

–Humminbird Fishfinder