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WHERE ARE THE
LARGE STRIPERS?
By: Ron Wilson
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Here's a couple of linesides
we've been catching |
May 15, 2009.... I can remember going
fishing as a young lad with my dad Joe and his friend George Bartley. we
fished on the opposite side of the river from the B&W boat launch on the
California Delta.
Back then my dad would park his truck on
the side of the road before daylight and we would walk down the dike for
about a mile to where the
Mokelumne River made a bend. At that time there was a channel
that ran through the area and the Stripers would go through there as
they made there way up to spawn.
Pop would fire up a lantern and we would
grab our poles,
bait and tackle and food and off we would go.
One day we headed down the dike to the
fishing hole and I can remember George poking at a pole cat with his
pole, he called it (skunk) and telling it to get off the road. I guess
the animal understood that we wanted by and just got out of the way and
didn’t stink us up. I can remember pop chuckling at George as he said
well I guess you showed him who was boss. It sure is funny how little
things you have done in the past stick with you.
I can also remember me getting a backlash
on a cast and before I got it out I caught a Striper in the 12 pound
class, George meanwhile caught one that was close to 40 pounds and when
he wouldn’t trade fish with me I got madder than hell at him. Yep those
were the days, memory making ones.
As I grew up I stuck a few more Striped
Bass tidbits in my memory. One of a couple memories involved George’s
son Red Bartley.
One time I saw him at a gas station with his small boat and he must have
had a hundred rebels hanging off the gunnels of his boat. Another time 3
of us were in my boat anchored in the
Sacramento River at the power lines, bait fishing for Stripers. I
had a hot stick that day or just maybe my rod was in the drop off where
the line sides were swimming upstream in. Anyway I would catch a fish
and Red would put it on the stringer. Somewhere around noon I asked Red
if we had a limit of fish on the stringer yet. Red held one fish up and
said nope. All the fish we had caught he was turning loose. I took over
handling the stringer and by 2 p.m. we were on our way home. That was
about 20 years ago on that last memory blast from the past.
For the last month I have been fishing
Stripers a couple days a week from the B&W area down to the
Antioch Bridge. Lots of small line sides to start with up to 6
pounds with an occasional 8 to 10 pound fish were being caught, not what
you would call red hot striper action.
There were 3 tournaments held on three
consecutive weekends and the winning fish the first weekend was 6
pounds. Then on the Escalon Sportsmen’s Club Derby it was 23 pounds and
then on the Modesto Chapter of the California Striped Bass Association
of California derby it was 14 pounds.
These weights should sound a warning bell
to somebody that just maybe the
Striped bass are in trouble. Anyway that’s what it seems like to
me.
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Harold with a couple of nice one's |
Not liking the weights that I was seeing
a friend of mine Harold Wiley and I have continued looking for the big
gals to show up in the area. We're hitting Santa Clara Shoals, New Run,
Bedroom, Kitchen, Patio, Peacock, Barges, Eddo’s and the Antioch Bridge
and a few places in between when the wind won’t let us fish where we
want. We have fished hard for a few keepers here and there but not the
quality that should be coming through the area as far as I am concerned.
The females that we are catching are all in the 8 to 10 pound range.
Males are smaller and squirting everywhere.
Now Harold and I are having a ball
chasing these hard hitters on light rods and we are not complaining
about the fights these smaller fish give us, but like all fishermen we
are never satisfied until we catch the one. You know the one that
screams 3 colors of lead core off your reel before you can yell fish on!
On the lead core were using 2 and 3 colors mostly and on the braided
lines we run them from 80 to 100 feet back.
On our last trip we caught 5 fish on 5
different colored baits that consisted of rebels, p-line lures and a
jig. I almost always use a spreader with a weighed swimming jig on a
short line and then a rebel lure on a longer one. Old school I know, but
it gives me that extra bait in the water which usually adds up to my
limit fish as some of the bigger ones hit the jig.
My thoughts are that maybe the big gals
are coming in late, who knows, but I think Harold and I will continue
chasing them until we strike out.
I know one thing for sure and that’s we
are catching some really good eaters. Just filet them out and take all
the red meat off them,
deep fry and chow down. |
