Fish Sniffer On Demand Digital Edition 3814 June 21- July 5 2019 | Page 24

22 June 21 - July 5, 2019 FRESHWATER REPORTS: CONTINUED FROM PG 20 WEST DELTA Late Spring Prolongs Striper & Sturgeon Action! BRANNAN ISLAND- The spring season seems to be running about a month behind. We’ve had a bunch of cold outflow this year and as a result, June anglers plying the Delta are enjoying May like conditions. The striper bite is raging. The sturgeon bite is downright amazing and since it is June fishing pressure is getting lighter and lighter as anglers fan out across the state in pursuit of various hot bites. For keeper and oversize sturgeon you’ll want to go west into the upper part of Suisun Bay. Look for the diamondbacks in the usual areas and you’ll find them. The outgoing tide has been offering the best fishing for sturgeon, but of course this is the most difficult tide to anchor during with the almost daily spring wind out of the west. Roe and eel are the baits. If you’ve never caught a sturgeon or are looking to fill a tag, the fishing is about as good as it gets in California. Stripers are on the move and can be found in solid numbers on both the Sacramento and San Joaquin sides. Pluggers, bait anglers and trollers are scoring limits most days. Trollers will want to work primarily with deep running plugs such as Yo-Zuri Crystal Minnows. Seek out areas of clean water and stay on the move to locate fish. Once you find a willing biter work the area carefully and watch for signs of other fish on your graph. HOW TO You attach a small plastic stop to the cable 10 to 15 feet above the ball. Then you lower the first line down to the level you want to fish. Once the first line is down you slip your plastic Shuttle Hawk to the cable, let out your second fishing line and attach it to the clip on the plainer. The fishing line attached to the plainer causes it to tip forward and dig into the current created by the movement of the boat. At that point, all you need to do is loosen the drag on your rod all the way and the plainer will be forced down to the plastic stop you put on the cable. Once it is all the way down, tighten the reel’s drag and go about your business. When a trout hits, the lure trailing behind the plainer and pulls the line out of the clip, the rolling weight in the plainer moves to the rear, causing its nose to tilt upward. When it does, it catches the current and is forced back up to the surface. Many times, I use my Shuttle Hawk even when I’m only using one rod per downrigger since it saves me from constantly raising and lowering my downrigger. If you have crank downriggers these devices are real labor savers. There is another method of probing different depths with only a single rod. I refer to this as using a cheater, it works like this. Let’s say you’re fishing a dodger and spoon 60 feet deep off a downrigger. A cheater or dropper is a 36-inch fluorocarbon leader with a spoon tied at one end and a snap swivel at the other. Once your downrigger has been lowered and the rod is in the holder, simply reach out and snap the spoon tipped leader to the line on the rod and drop it into the water. The pressure of the water pulling against the fishing line causes it to arch out behind the boat. The cheater leader will slide down the line to the center of the arch. If your primary rig is working at 60 feet the cheater will descend down to about the 30-foot level and stay there. You can always count on the cheater stopping at the halfway point between the surface and the primary rig. Since the cheater is essentially only working from 6 to 10 feet behind the boat, depending on how large the bow in the main line is this tactic only works well when the primary rig is being pulled in moderately deep to deep water, otherwise the cheater will be too close to the boat for good results. In general, for me to employ a cheater FRESHWATER VOL.38 • ISS. 14 For bait anglers fishing with shad, bloodworms, sardines or live minnows, deep water near the channel on the Sacramento River is one of the best places to look for action. Pluggers are doing well with both soft plastic swimbaits and jigging spoons. By Cal Kellogg These anglers hit New Melones Reservoir on May 31 and rounded up limits of kokanee while trolling with Capt. Monte Smith. Photo courtesy of GOLD COUNTRY SPORTFISHING, Oakdale. continued from page 10 my primary rig has to be working in 40 two-hooked trout fight against both your employ both a lure and dodger on a feet of water or deeper. It is important to rod and each other. cheater. I’ve seen it done and I’ve seen it keep a close eye on your rod when using Most of the time small low drag catch fish, but all in all it seems like a lot a cheater, since when a fish is hooked, spoons like Needlefish and Dick Nites of work. In reality if it takes a full blown it will almost never cause the line to are used on cheater leaders, but there dodger and lure combination to draw pop off the downrigger. Instead you’ll are other options. Apex style lures work strikes you’ll be best served shelving the see the fight of the trout telegraphed to well as do Wiggle Hoochies. cheater concept and just working your the rod. At this point you need to grab If you are really daring you can main line at the depth indicated. the rod, pop it out of the downrigger and quickly reel until you feel the For both Bank Anglers and Boat Anglers! weight of the trout. Sponsored by If you don’t move 2019 TOURNAMENT DATES fast the trout will • FEB. 2nd .................. San Pablo Dam Res. often shake the • March 2nd .............. Lake Pardee hook because it is • March 23rd ............. Lake Amador essentially fighting • APRIL 13th .............. Collins Lake on a slack line. • OCT. 12th ................ 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