In the last couple weeks I’ve spent about 36 hours sturgeon fishing in the West Delta and upper reaches of Suisun Bay. Are the sturgeon biting? Absolutely. Can I catch one? Apparently not, since I’ve been skunked so far.

In light of my recent lack of action, I decided to take a trip over to Folsom Lake in search of some spring bass. Folsom is my home lake and I know a few spots that can kick out some nice bass this time of the year.

On Friday April 21, I was scheduled to give a short trout fishing seminar for the Rooster Tails Fishing Club beginning at 8 am. I figured that the meeting would break up around 10 o’clock, so dad and I planned hitch up my Jet Craft and head for the lake as soon as the meeting ended.

After leaving the Roosters, I was headed to Dad’s when Fish Sniffer’s senior editor Dan Bacher called my cell phone. The striper trip he had been planning had fallen through and he wanted to join us at the lake. After a little discussion we agreed to meet at the Rattlesnake Bar Launch Ramp at 11:30. Despite working only 15 feet from Dan, I seldom get to fish with him, so I was excited to have him along.

True to form, Dan rolled in at 11: 55… After exchanging a few verbal jabs we were on the water. In terms of spring bass fishing the coves surrounding Anderson Island had always been very good to me, so that’s where we headed. It was warm, humid and still. A thick mantle of black clouds threatened thunder and occasionally spit rain.

Skimming into the large cove that bordered the island I killed the Evinrude and deployed the electric trolling motor and we got started rigging up. The motor’s Minn Kota Copilot System allowed me to steer the boat quietly toward the shoreline using a remote control while setting up a split shot rig on my Lamiglas spinning rod. I decided to use a 4 inch blue shadow Magic Worm, Dad opted for a yellow Roostertail spinner, while Dan chose a wacky rigged 6” blue Senko.

As we eased into position amid the clucks and screeches of a handful of nesting egrets, we noted that the water was only slightly stained and we could pick out the shapes of large submerged rocks. Dan and Dad worked the shallows, while I probed the 10 to 15 foot zone.

Dan was dead sticking his Senko along the outer edge of the boulders. He’d only been at it for 5 minutes when he stuck a hard fighting 13 inch spotted bass. Dan had barely gotten his fish unhooked when I nailed a spot of my own. We wanted a few bass for dinner, so Dan put his 13 incher in the cooler while I released mine. My bass was probably legal, but just too close to keep.

Seeing Dan and I score so quickly with plastics, dad got rid of his Roostertail and replaced it with a blue flake Yamamoto 3 inch grub on a quarter ounce darter head. About a dozen casts later he hooked his first bass of the season, when a sleek 14 incher rushed the swimming grub right next to the boat. By that time we’d reach the outer edge of the island. Thinking there had to be more fishing along the stretch of bank we’d just covered I steered the boat back to the rear of the cove.

We headed for a cluster of submerged trees that would be attractive to a big largemouth looking to spawn. I got hit on my first cast, but missed the fish. In short order a fat 2 pounder suspended in one of the trees ate Dan’s Senko and we had a second bass spot in the cooler.

A few minutes later I hooked up with another borderline keeper on the far side of the trees and Dad followed with his second bass, an eager 13 inch spot. At this point, we’d caught 6 spotted bass in less than an hour and I was thinking we were going to have one of those 20 plus fish afternoons.

With all the action, we didn’t notice that the sky had cleared significantly and that a stiff breeze had begun blowing. Abruptly the bite fell off. We got a couple more tentative hits as we refished the shoreline of the island. When we headed across the lake to a series of coves that are generally pretty productive we got completely blanked.

Heading to a clay and rock bank we drew another blank and yet another when we explored a shallow brush clogged cove. As a final effort, we headed back to the tree where Dan nailed his biggest bass, a 2 pound spotted bass. Both Dan and I were able to draw one more strike apiece, but we both failed to connect.

The dramatic decline in action was one of the most extreme I’d ever witnessed. One moment we couldn’t keep the bass off our gear, the next we could not buy a strike. Looking back I think two factors contributed to our lack of success beyond the first hour.

First I think the weather change resulted in a pressure fluctuation as marked by the increasing wind. Second, as we moved from cove to cove we noted significant fluctuations in temperature. The water was 60.8 degrees in the area where we had the best luck.

On the other side of the north fork only a few hundred yards away, the water temperature was a brisk 52 degrees. In hindsight, those cold coves may not have produced fish even when the bite was at its strongest. Had we stuck to fishing water that was in the 60 degree range I think we would have experienced slower action, but I think we would have kept on hooking the occasional bass throughout the afternoon.

Nevertheless, it had been a fantastic day. We had a lot of fun, talked a lot of smack, and ended up with enough fish for dinner. Is my slump broken? Probably, but I won’t know for sure until my upcoming trip to Lake Shasta to cover the Kokanee Power trout derby.