FISHING REPORT Sept. 23, 2007

With salmon fishing still very tough on the Sacramento, Feather & American rivers, I opted for other species this week. The best bet has been Delta stripers, which are just coming into the system now.

I tried the Sacramento side a few times and found some stripers, but have since switched over the to San Joaquin side, where there seems to be more fish. On SJ side, we have been hooking 15-30 fish a day on plastics and topwater baits.

Yesterday, we hooked 4 fish over 10 pounds on surface lures, including one that got in the weeds and broke off that was probably a good solid 20 pounder. We also found a WFO jig bite that could have produced 100 stripers had we want to sit there on them (most were shakers and we got tired of trying to weed through ‘em). In addition, we got some keeper-sized linesiders on the surface, plus some good largemouth from 3-5 pounds.

Speaking of bass, there have been good numbers of quality largemouth mixed in every day. At high slack, we’ve got a couple places where you can hook 20 bass in the 2- to 4-pound class in an hour or two. Texas-rigged worms, spinnerbaits and topwater have been the tickets. Even the good ol’ guide gets to catch a couple now and then…

It really seems odd to be talking about bass and stripers during what has always been salmon season for me. But, with such a bummer season (up to this point), I’m adapting and going where the fish are.

So, what’s up for the next several weeks? Well, salmon are always the priority and if they show up, we’ll be on ‘em. For now, however, the Delta is just going to get better and better from a striper standpoint and the topwater bite will also improve. There are few things cooler than a 15-pound bass blowing up on your popper!

Beginning next week, I’m going to do salmon-striper combos. We’ll give the salmon action a try during the best tides and then switch to chasing stripers. Kinda the best of both worlds, really.

Tahoe mackinaw fishing was pretty good before this storm as well. I was scheduled to fish there Friday & Saturday but this is what we found at the boat launch Friday morning:

UPCOMING SCHEDULE
OCTOBER: Salmon and stripers on the Delta

NOVEMBER: Night salmon on the American & Delta stripers.

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