Delta Stripers: The Hunt Is On!   By: Cal Kellogg October 31, 2006 More Articles by Cal

I don’t care what anyone says - Delta stripers are not easily caught by the average angler. When it comes to delta striper fishing, there are two types of anglers, those in the know and those that don’t know enough to know they don’t know anything.

For a long time I was in the second category. At this point after being coached on bait fishing tactics by Barry Canevaro for nearly two years and more recently by trolling experts Mark Wilson and Clyde Wands, I’ve learned enough to realize that I have a lot more to learn. Yet, as a result of the tutoring offered by these outstanding anglers, I’ve started to experience success while fishing on my own and that is a sweet feeling.

On October 5 and 6 I spent two full days chasing delta stripers from the Fish Sniffer Jetcraft 1825. Dawn on the first day found my wife Gena and I preparing the boat at the Brannan Island launch ramp.

A front was moving through and there was a good chance of rain. For most of us guys, fishing comes first and comfort comes second, but if you want to spend time on the water with you wife, you’ve got to put comfort first. As a result I took a few extra minutes putting up the canvas top and zipping on the plastic side curtains.

With the top up and the gear stowed, we made a short run out of Three Mile Slough and started trolling a rainbow pattern Bomber Long A and a 5.25 inch Yo-Zuri live bait minnow, both tipped with white plastic worms, along the eastern shoreline of Horseshoe Bend.

Before long I was talking to both Mark and Clyde on the radio. They were working the shoreline west of Decker Island. Mark was catching fish, so when the bend failed to produce, I pulled the gear and motored across the Sacramento to the area where Mark and Clyde were.

Once we arrived at the red barn below Decker Island I put our lures back out, placed the rods in the rod holders atop my Cannon downriggers and started trolling up river at about 2.5 miles per hour. Just after we arrived, Clyde hooked and lost a big bass and Mark was giving him the business over the radio.

A few minutes later I met Mark as he was trolling down river and it was my turn to get a ribbing. “No wonder you can’t catch stripers, you’re using downriggers. You’re not fishing for trout you know,” quipped Mark.

When Mark blasted past me, I noticed he was moving really fast. I asked Mark how fast he was trolling and he confided most of his strikes had come at 4.6 miles per hour. Clyde told me a few minutes later that the hot lure was a pearl colored Bomber.

Not only was I moving too slow, I also had on the wrong colored lures. I changed baits and bumped my speed up to 4.5. As we trolled Clyde shared that the strikes he’d gotten had come in 6 to 7 feet of water, so I moved in tighter to the bank.

I’d like to report that I got into some fish after modifying my approach, but the bite largely shut down after I arrived. I think Mark boated 1 or 2 more bass and that was it. Once the fish stopped biting, Mark quickly headed off up river in search of more bass.

Clyde and I kept working the area for a while longer. When a big ship came up the channel, Clyde related that we might as well go check out another area. “I’m heading over to the San Joaquin. The wake from this ship is going to raise the mud and after that we won’t catch anything around here,” tipped Clyde.

Gena and I decided we’d run to the San Joaquin, find some fish on the sonar and see if we couldn’t catch them with bait. We’d only been in the San Joaquin a little while, when I cruised over a shallow shoal and marked a good concentration of fish holding along the edges. I positioned the boat over the shoal in about 8 feet of water.

After rigging up both rods with sliding sinker rigs and arming the hooks with filleted shad, we tossed out the rods and placed them in our Fish Hookers balancers. Immediately, both of the rods were getting hit. Since the fish weren’t grabbing the bait and pulling line from the reel’s clickers I assumed that it was small stripers.

A few minutes later when I hooked and landed a feisty 12 incher, my suspicions were confirmed. One part of me wanted to leave and get away from the shakers. On the other hand, I’d marked some good sized fish and I had plenty of bait. In the end I resigned myself to re-baiting often and decided to stick it out.

I’d brought along a bag of anchovies to use as chum. I threw out a couple handfuls of finely sliced anchovies, hoping that it would excite the larger fish. I was in the process of putting a fresh shad on Gena’s hook when the clicker on my rod started screaming as a powerful fish took off with the bait.

Grabbing the rod, I switched off the clicker and counted to ten as I lightly thumbed the spool. At ten I turned the Big Game reel’s handle to engage the gears, allowed the rod tip to load against the fish and drove the hook home with authority.

I knew instantly that I was into a good size bass and so did Gena as she grabbed the net. The bass put up a strong fight, making three hard runs into deep water before finally approaching the boat. I worked the striper to the surface four times only to have it dive away before I could slide it into the net.

The fifth time was a charm and Gena skillfully scooped the handsome 9 pound bass aboard. We were pretty excited, not only did we have our first keeper striper of the season, but we’d also insured that Saturday would be “Fish Taco Night”!

The next morning found me at the Brannan Island launch ramp once again with my dad and brother Erik. Unfortunately, the wind was up on the heels of the cold front. We spent the morning trolling Decker without results before heading over to my hotspot on the San Joaquin.

The Fish Sniffer Publisher Allen Bonslett and Managing Editor Dan Bacher showed up in midmorning and quickly boated a keeper and a shaker while trolling in Horseshoe Bend, before the bend became clogged with boats trying to hide from the wind.

On the San Joaquin conditions were deteriorating quickly and I knew we wouldn’t have long to fish. We’d had the baits out for about 10 minutes when a fish took Erik’s shad and moved off against the clicker. I could tell it wasn’t as big as the bass we’d boated the previous day, but from the spirited fight it gave Erik we knew it was likely a keeper. Moments later the suspense was broken when I lifted the 22 incher into the net.

We fished for another 30 minutes, but the wind was becoming more violent and the water was quickly beginning to look like creamed coffee, so we headed in.

For me, the two days had been a great success with a pair of solid keepers in the boat. I’m sure we could have done much better on the second day had it not been for the wind. My next goal is to land limits or hammer a truly big bass in that 20 plus pound category. If I stay at it for a hundred years, I might get as good as Mark Wilson. He caught and released 22 keepers on Thursday!