Fish Sniffer Advertising Representative Sheldon Bright is a perfect example. Bright was fishing with his father, Bill Bright of Richmond on Tuesday, November 25 when they got hit with a case of striper fever. "The black bass bite has been pretty tough out there lately, so I decided to spend the day targeting striped bass with my dad," explained Bright. "We launched at B&W Marina at first light and headed up the San Joaquin River."

According to Bright, he and his father started out the day in Mildred Island where some of the better reports had been coming from during the past week. "We spent 30 minutes or so in Mildred and it was dead," he explained. "We tried a few other spots making our towards Franks Tract and still didn't come up with anything."

At that point, Sheldon was ready to make a major move and decided to make the long run into the upper stretches of the south Delta.

"I was up there a few weeks ago pre-fishing for a bass tournament and caught five stripers in the four to six pound class," he explained. "Judging from what I saw in early November, I knew the stripers would be in their thick by now. That's the great thing about striper fishing out of bass boat; you can cover a tremendous amount of water in a short period of time. It only took us a little over 25 minutes to make the 20 plus mile run in my Skeeter 200ZX powered by a 200 H.P. Yamaha H.P.D.I."

Once he arrived to where he had found fish nearly a month earlier, it didn't take long to get on the boards. "There's a lot of tight (small) water up there and you really have to take a stealth approach when targeting black bass or stripers," he explained. "We were moving down the bank on the trolling motor when I noticed some surface activity. Bait was being pushed up onto a shallow flat, so I immediately started casting a Zara Spook while my dad threw out a half ounce blue and chrome Rat-L-Trap. The Spook didn't draw any attention, but my did hit a 10 pounder on his third cast."

Bright stuck with the topwater bait for the next fifteen minutes, but switched over to a Rat-L-Trap after his dad continued to hook into one big striper after another. "Once I made the switch, we hit several double hook-ups on fish running anywhere from 6 to 18 pounds," stated. "It was the best bite on quality stripers I have ever experienced. They had the bait pushed up against a shallow bank and we sat there for an hour straight and landed close to 25 fish. Most were 6 to 9 pounds and we had several in the 10 to 13 pound class and two big fish around 18 pounds. Finding bait was the key to our success. All I can say is keep moving until you locate a concentration of bait and the stripers will be right there with them."

Another bass angler who makes the switch to fall stripers is Don Paganelli of Paganelli's Bass Fishing Experience. "We've been averaging 10 to 12 striped bass a day on the Delta using a combination of topwater baits and spoons," he explained. "We throw topwater baits early in the morning if we see birds diving. As the day progresses and the birds stop diving, we switch over to spoons for better results."

According to Paganelli, the Delta is extremely clear at press time and the coming rains should actually improve the striped bass action. As the water colors up, the bait and striped bass will become more concentrated and much easier to locate.