Delta Blues

My wife's uncle and his family came to town from Minneapolis last week for a little family visit, so it was only right for us to get in some grade A California fishing while he was here. He's a big walleye and muskey guy from the Midwest, and when we were out there this last summer he put me on a huge walleye, so it seemed only right to take him out to the Delta for a little striper action... but that was just it... very LITTLE striper action...

I'll admit, I have no clue how to fish the Delta, let alone how to navigate it. I know how to fish for stripers, but it's a whole different ball game down there. I've been told that the formula for success in the delta goes something like this: The water temp needs to be about right, the bait fish need to be plentiful, the water clarity needs to be reasonable, the tides need to be right, and you just need to know where the fish hold... ya.... we didn't have any of that stuff working for us. The water looked like chocolate milk, the water temps were in the upper 40's, and we didn't mark a single fish on the finder all day.

We launched at Wimpy's around 7 am and motored down to Beaver Slough where we pricked one schoolie right away, but that was it for the entire day. That "right-off-the-bat" fish is always a bad sign... You catch a fish right away thinking that, "Today is gonna' be a good day!...." wrong....

At least we didn't get skunked. I would've rather had my guest catch that fish, but that's just how it happens sometimes. We fished several other sloughs looking for warmer water trying to find the bait fish... We found some warmer water, but not a single bait ball all day... SSSLLLLLOOOOOOWWW.... but that's what everyone was telling me before we even launched, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised...

Oregon's Waters.

Where will I go when I retire? Probably somewhere in Oregon....



It's people like Brian Huskey from Fishbite Media that really remind me why I love to fish. His Warren Miller-style video clips bring back memories of all the days spent on those middle-of-nowhere creeks with my good friends and good fishing.

Winter fish porn...

Just a little more winter fish porn madness...

Krakowwww!

The AR is always worth a shot.

I've heard from several people that there are stripers in the lower AR all year, just hangin' out chowin' on salmon and steelhead smolts all winter and spring. Although the people I've talked to haven't really fished for them in the dead of winter, they did say that it would be interesting to see if you could catch anything in January, and if you did hook into one, that it would probably be a monster. What the hell..... I'm always up for a challenge.

Mikey was coming down to give a talk to the TU chapter and he had mentioned that he wanted to try chucking some flies for stripers, so I borrowed Dan B.'s drift boat and we had at it.

We put in at Sunrise and fished all the way to Goethe chucking clousers and long striper patterns with maybe a bump or two, but nothing to show for. I was having my doubts when all of a sudden Mikey hooks-up with a fish just above the footbridge at Goethe. The fish came unbuttoned before we could have a look at it, but we did see some flashy silver, so we just guessed that it was striper. Two casts later, Mikey has a solid hook-up and puts a huge bend in his 10 wt. After a good fight and a couple of short runs, the fish came up to the top and... sure as shit... a hatchery steelhead...

Not the striper we were looking for, but still a good fight and a good night. Those stripers are in there, and now I can't wait until summer to really turn the heat on those silent killers, the Boogey Man, as Mikey calls 'em.

Round 3...

The barneys from the bay can have the Yuba. I'm tired of driving up there and finding like 30 other dudes corked-out on every stretch of fishable water, acting like they're giving me a lesson on how to catch a Yuba trout; slashing at the rising fish wondering why they aren't taking their black and tan parachute adams... They can have it... I'll wait until summer when the fly fisherman hatch turns off and the real fishing turns on...

In the mean time... I'll try to find some other way to get my fix....

Hows about a 20 inch Truckee torpedo?...

Now that's how you ring in the new year!

How can a trout get so fat eating a bug so small?