Angler West Television, Fish Hooker Sportfishing, Hi's Tackle And The Fish Sniffer Go On The Hunt For Stripers   By: Cal Kellogg December 28, 2006 More Articles by Cal

Stripers! In a state that features a wide variety of world class gamefish, the striped bass is among the very best. Their range is huge. Over the course of a year stripers migrate from the pounding surf outside the Golden Gate to quiet backwater sloughs on the upper reaches of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers.

The techniques used to target stripers are as diverse as the locations the bass inhabit with pluggers, trollers and bait anglers all getting in on the action. The one constant in relation to stripers is their heart. They are fighters regardless of their size or where they are found.

Growing up in the Bay Area, I spent a lot of time targeting stripers in the bay and off coastal beaches. More recently I've become a delta striper fanatic. There is something about the delta that really captures my imagination with its rich ecosystem, ever changing currents and 1,200 miles of navigatable water.

Trolling and plugging for delta stripers are exciting approaches, but if I had to choose one exclusively it would be bait fishing. For me there is nothing better than scouting out some bass, tossing bait and waiting for the clicker to signal a bite from a striper that could weigh anywhere from 2 pounds up to 50 or even more.

When it comes to bait fishing for delta stripers, Captain Barry Canevaro of Fish Hookers Sportfishing is the foremost authority, with more than 40 years of experience. Due to Canevaro's coaching, my success rate when striper fishing delta waters has skyrocketed.

While filming an episode of Angler West Television at Whiskeytown Reservoir this summer I mentioned Canevaro to Justin Wolff and asked if he'd be interested in filming a segment about bait fishing for delta stripers when the fall run got going. Justin enthusiastically agreed, as did Canevaro when I asked him if he'd be interest in filming a show days later.

Justin brought renown Bay Area fishing authority and author Steve "Hippo" Lau of Hi's Tackle on board to round out our group for the trip. Hippo is the author of the "Salty Tips" column in the Sniffer and is a familiar name to our readers.

Filming a fishing show is challenging. Clearly you've got to produce some fish, but you've also got to work around everybody's schedule. Justin's always busy, Hippo works full time at Hi's, I'm on the go most of the time, and Canevaro, being a full time charter skipper is usually booked with clients. After looking at our schedules, we settled on December 7 as the date for our trip.

At the time we settled on the 7th the striper bite in the west delta was raging, so we figured that with everyone scheduled our biggest challenge was behind us.Well, this has been a cold dry fall. As a result water temperatures in the delta have declined rapidly.

By the time the 7th rolled around, water temperatures were hovering between 46 and 48 degrees. When I joined Canevaro and his wife Diana aboard the Fish 'N' Fool IV at the Pittsburg Marina, he told me that the low water temperatures combined with weak tides would make for tough fishing.

Hippo and Justin arrived around 7 o'clock. After exchanging greetings and talking about the prospects for the day, Canevaro eased the boat out of the marina and set a course for Montezuma Slough. I'd fished the slough 6 days before and had enjoyed outstanding striper action when the water temperature was 52 degrees. I couldn't believe that the temperature fell 4 degrees in less than a week, but I knew that if anyone could produce stripers it would be Canevaro.

When we arrived in Montezuma the tide was slack, so we spent about 30 minutes cruising around looking for fish in preparation for the start of the outgo. Canevaro marked bass holding in several different locations, but the best sonar returns came when we cruised over a 17 foot deep hole along an inside bend. Canevaro anchored the boat such that he could cast the baits into the hole and proceeded to bait four rods. One rod was baited with a sardine fillet, another with a cut bullhead and the remaining two sported filleted shad.

Once the tide started flowing in earnest, the rods started registering taps and bumps. The bass were certainly interested in our baits, but due to the cold water they were just picking at them. Finally a bass grabbed the filleted shad on the starboard side and moved off. Hippo fed the fish several yards of line and then drove the hook home. The bass was a scrapper, but turned out to be short of the minimum 18 inch size limit. While we wished the bass had been a keeper, we took the fish as a sign of good things to come.

Only a few minutes had passed when a second customer sucked in a shad and slowly swam away. Once again Hippo, let the fish have the bait for about a minute before engaging the reel and dropping the hammer. It was clear from the start that this was a better quality fish, and Hippo had his hands full for several minutes as he tried to bring the husky 7 pounder to the net.

After Hippo boated his second fish the current started to weaken and the bite died. "Lets reel up and head over to Nurse Slough. We can try fishing some shallow water up there until the incoming tide gets started and then we'll move back into the main slough," Canevaro said.

As we cruised up Nurse big numbers of fish showed on the sonar and we got excited. After anchoring above a concentration of fish our excitement soon gave way to frustration. The bass continually nibbled at our baits, but refused to eat. I missed the hook set on the only real bite we got in Nurse, opening myself to a ribbing from Canevaro.

Around 1 o'clock Canevaro announced that the tide would be moving in the main slough, so we headed off to one of Canevaro's favorite spots, known as the "Gum Tree". The sonar returns in the area only looked fair, but the water temperature had inched up slightly and Canevaro was hopeful that a with a little chum he could draw in some willing stripers.

When my clicker started talking, the chance to redeem the missed hook set had come. Taking off the clicker, I let the lethargic bass run for over a minute before engaging the reel and giving the bass the business. The striper was strong and determined to stay on the bottom, but the resilience of the rod ultimately won out and I had my first bass in the box.

A short while later a bass picked up Hippo's shad and tore off at a fast clip. It must have been the striper's lucky day because when Hippo set the hook he came up empty. With bites coming more regularly, Hippo had another fish take off with his bait moments later. Hippo reared back and the rod arched into a satisfying bend signally that luck was now on his side.

As Hippo fought his fish the clicker on my rod started paying out line. I didn't set the hook immediately because I though Hippo's fish might have tangled the line. When Hippo's bass moved off to the starboard side, it became clear that a second bass was working on my shad. I engaged the reel and bang we had a double hookup.

Hippo's bass was the larger of the two and it put up a great battle, while my 19 incher came to the boat pretty quickly. As a result, both fish wallowed to the surface off the starboard corner at the same time, allowing Canevaro to scoop them both into the net in one swoop. Hippo's bass went in the box and mine went back into the water to grow up.

Just before we called it a day, a striper took a shad Canevaro had rigged on a circle hook. Diana picked up the rod, allowed the bass to take the bait and them demonstrated how to set the circle hook by raising the rod tip and reeling slowly. The bass wasn't a keeper, but with Diana getting in on the action it brought the trip to a perfect conclusion.

The conditions had been tough, but Canevaro's knowledge and bait fishing techniques produced limits for Hippo and I. You can watch all the action and learn about Canevaro's brand of bait fishing on an upcoming episode of Angler West Television.