Fish Sniffer On Demand Digital Edition Issue 3709 April 13-27, 2018 | Page 3

Up-To-Date and Published Locally... By Sportsmen... For Sportsmen! Rancho Seco Map Feature MADE IN U.S.A See Page 24 Vol. 37 - ISS.09 Our 36th Year I April 13 - 27, 2018 Since 1982 “The Magazine for West Coast Sportsmen!” NorCal Female Fish Slayers Bag Sturgeon Limits! rolled up to the boat launch at 6:30 in the morning on March 11, ready for an epic day of fishing. I was super excited to be meeting up with a group of awesome ladies who also love to fish! Nice weather, perfect tides, and all around good company, it was going to be a great day. We booked our trip with Captain Kyle Dryer and deckhand, Dustin Pestana, of Death Roe Sportfishing. Capt. Kyle and Dustin put their clients on a lot of big fish and they generously offered to run an all girls fishing trip! I’m getting excited about the trip all over again just by typing this story. Before I go any further my friends were Ashley Watson, Jes Szura, and Sara Marie and as I mentioned they hard core anglers. We are all members of the NorCal Female Fish Slayers group on Facebook. GONE FISHING by Marisa Escareno We launched at about 7:15am in Pittsburg. The girls and I were ready to get to work! Ashley and Sara had never caught a sturgeon Jes Szura holds up a monster West Delta sturgeon that she boated on March 11 before, so they when the NorCal Female Fish Slayers went on the hunt for diamond backs! Photo courtesy of DUSTIN PESTANA, Death Roe Sportfishing. were going to be first in line when the fish started biting! and extremely pumped up! As Kyle and Dustin set up, we Dustin grabbed the net and brought noticed that we would be using custom Sara’s first white sturgeon on board. Stubborn Rods. The fish was a nice 47 inch slot size With the salmon roe baits in the water keeper! We were ready for more action! we all kept our eyes out for any of the Not too long after, the farthest rod rods to go off. Moments later, we saw the to the right started moving. Once again, first rod to the left bounce lightly. Dustin ran over and reeled the hook Dustin ran over and set the hook… into the sturgeon’s mouth…FISH ON! FISH ON! This time it’s Ashley’s turn! She Sara immediate ly took the rod and starts reeling and automatically falls in started reeling on the fish. This is the love. The feeling of fighting your first moment that caused all of us girls to sturgeon is unreal and instantly turns officially go crazy. We were all so excited CONTINUED ON PAGE 16 A Day on the Water with Louis Cardenas of the Kayak City Fishing Team A s I loaded my brand new 2018 Hobie Pro Angler 12, I was stoked to get on the water to test its mojo for the first time. We launched with overcast skies and no wind into glass water at 7AM in Capel Cove. The plan was to paddle about 30 Min paddle to our first spot and test the reaction bite 10 to 15 foot deep water in hopes of finding some bass that had move up from the depths to feed. (925) 428-1103 www.dragonsportfishing.com After an hour with no action, we moved to my next spot off a main lake point with nice structure and brush piles. I was sitting in about When Louis Cardenas took his brand new Hobie Pro Angler 12 kayak to Lake Berryessa 10 ft of water this March for its maiden voyage, he caught several quality bass including this muscular casting into out largemouth! Photo courtesy of LOUIS CARDENAS, Kayak City Fishing Team. 36 Years Serving Sportsmen 20-25 feet, when BAM, I landed a nice 2.5lb. largemouth on a drop shot. Not a bad way to break in the new yak! A few casts later, I shook the tip a few times with a slow drag and felt the line slowly coming my way. I reeled up and hooked another one that came unpinned as the bass broke the surface. Now I knew we found a solid pattern. With- in a short period, we landed several more off the deep point. The fish were holding in 20-25ft water and respond- ing to a painfully slow presentation. After watching the bass relate to bottom structure on my electronics for a good hour, I decided to switch over to green/ brown jig tipped with a strike king rage craw as a trailer. Within a few casts slow dragging the bottom, I get hammered, and I mean hammered. Its rare that I get hit that hard on a jig bite. That fish turned GONE FISHING by Louis Cardenas CONTINUED ON PAGE 17 State Senate Appoints Infrastructure Development Corporation Executive to Delta Stewardship Council See Page 27 Special Section Baja Roundup PG 34-35 INSIDE Area Reports FRESHWATER REPORTS Almanor - American River.....................................4 Berryessa Lake - Colusa/Knights Landing...........10 Davis Lake - Feather River ........................... 14-15 Folsom Lake - Los Vasquez Reservoir................17 New Melones - Pardee Lake...............................21 Quarry Lakes - Rollins/Scotts Flat......................22 Russian River - Shasta/Whiskeytown Lakes......26 South Chetco Rivers - West Delta................ 28-29 SALTWATER REPORTS Berkeley - Half Moon Bay.....................................32 Martinez - Peninsula Shoreline.............................33 FEATURES Where...When...How... TROUT & KOKANEE JOURNAL........ 6-9, 12-13, 18-19 BAJA ROUNDUP...............................................34-35 BULLETIN BOARD................................................... 4 COOKIN’ YER CATCH - Paulette Kenyon............... 30 FISH SNIFFER HOW-TO: Cal Kellogg................... 14 GO FOR IT: Staff....................................................... 5 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR...................................... 3 MAP FEATURE: Dan Bacher.............................25-26 SALTY TIPS Steve “Hippo” Lau.............................. 34 SPOTLIGHT ON CONSERVATION - Dan Bacher.... 27 WHAT’S HOT SALTWATER - Dan Bacher.............. 31 STAFF TACKLE What We’re Using Cal Kellogg - fished the middle Delta for striped bass. For working buck- tal jigs and Fish Trap style swimbaits Cal chose a Fenwick 7’5” Aetos cast- ing rod paired with an Abu Garcia Orra Inshore baitcaster with a 7.1:1 gear ratio. Paul Kneeland - fished Bullards Bar Reservoir with John Brassfield of Trucksmart stores in John’s 18’ Duckworth. They caught kokanee to 13 inches using an 8’ Phenix Reaper com- posite triggerstick kokanee rod with a Team Daiwa Z ultra light reel loaded with 6 pound Yozuri TopKnot fluorocarbon line. They trolled pink/orange Paulina Peak hoochies tipped with corn behind hammered Paulina Peak dodgers in silver/pink 25 feet deep off the Cannon Downriggers at 1.4 mph. Dan Bacher - fished for rainbow trout at Scotts Flat Lake. He used a Berkley Ugly Stick GX2 6’ 6” me- dium action spinning rod, teamed up with a Shake- speare GX235 spinning reel filled with 6 lb. test P-Line CX Premium Flourocarbon Coated Line. He fished with chartreuse Berkley PowerBait, 1/8 oz. gold and black Panther Martins and /8 oz. Yakima Bait Rooster Tails in Brown Trout, Fire Ti- ger and Rainbow color patterns.