Fish Sniffer On Demand Digital Edition Issue 3802 Jan 4-18 | Page 3

Up-To-Date and Published Locally... By Sportsmen... For Sportsmen! Quarry Lakes Map Feature MADE IN U.S.A See Page 16 Vol. 38 - ISS.2 Our 36th Year U Since 1982 January 4 - 18, 2019 “The Magazine for West Coast Sportsmen!” Circle The Wagons For Delta Striped Bass sing bait is a great way to put fish into the boat when fishing for striped bass. Soaking bait works, but the biggest issue some anglers have is timing when to set the hook. They typically set the hook too soon, and end up ripping their bait off without hooking the fish. Over the past several years, I’ve been doing a lot of exper- imentation with circle hooks. A circle hook looks similar to a conventional J-shaped hook, but the point curls around and aims at the shank. At first glance, it seems like you wouldn’t be able set the hook with these things. You would be correct, and this is where circle hooks deviate from J-hooks. With circle hooks, the hook is pulled into the corner of the fish’s mouth by reeling slowly. Instead of swinging for the sky like one of those bass fishing shows, you slowly reel to set the hook. For hooks, I’ve settled on Gamakatsu 8/0 inline octopus circle hooks with a straight eye (265418 INLINE OCTOPUS CIRCLE SE). I use a three-foot long 25-pound test P-Line CXX monofilament leader. I tie a snell knot so the leader comes out of the eye on the same side as the hook point. This forces the hook point towards the line when you hook a fish. I found this to be the recom- mended method by a commer- cial fishing website that had a bunch of test data to support the method. If you think using circle hooks for stripers sounds crazy, wait until you hear what kind of rod I am using. Long limber rods help to read the bites and load up on the hooksets. Ugly Sticks or downrigger rods seem to work nicely, but I’ve settled on the 10 foot “B’n’M West Point Crappie Pole” as my favorite rod. Yes, a crappie rod for stripers. I’ve caught fish up to 21 pounds on these rods. I like to use 65-pound test braided line for my GONE FISHING by Jack Naves L INSIDE Area Reports FEATURES Where...When...How... Jack Naves displays a 9 lb striper he landed using a circle hook in the West Delta. Photo by JACK NAVES, Fish Sniffer Staff. mainline, as it doesn’t stick to the rod blank as bad as mono does when loaded up on a fish. As for bait, anything will do, just be sure that you don’t block the gap CONTINUED ON PG 26 just a stone’s throw from the California Delta. With nearly 300 instructional videos, countless documented monster catches, and a loyal fanbase, you can bet he knows a lot about fishing. Nick also gives back to the fishing community. One of his annual events is IF’mas, which kicks off at dawn with free bass and trout tour- naments at beautiful Lake Camanche. The tournaments draw anglers from all over California and the fun continues into the afternoon and evening with a catered dinner, meet-and-greets with Nick and local pro anglers, vendor tables, and a free raffle with thousands of dollars in prizes. One top of that, a small handful of fans are randomly chosen each year to fish portions of the bass tournament with a pro... on the pro’s boat! This year was my year. Three days before the event, Nick reached out through Instagram, informing me I’d been chosen to fish GONE FISHING by Stacey Barawed Stacy Barawed poses with her two best bass caught and at IF’mas with bass pro Matt Frazier at Lake Camanche this December. Photo by STACY BARAWED. Special Section Baja Roundup PG 31 FRESHWATER REPORTS Lake Amador - Bullards Bar/Englebright Resv.......4 Camanche Lake - Lake Davis...................................7 Del Valle Lake - Eagle Lake ................................ 13 East Delta............................................................. 14 Eastern Sierra - New Melones Lake.................... 20 Oroville Lake - Shasta Lake............................ 22-23 Smith/Chetco Rivers - West Delta ..................... 24 SALTWATER REPORTS Berkeley - Fisherman’s Wharf......................... 28-29 Half Moon Bay - Monterey Bay.............................31 Learning From A Bass Pro at Lake Camanche ike many anglers, I have a full-time job and can’t spend as much time as I would like on the water, especially during these winter months as daylight continues to dwindle. So, I make the best of my free time doing as much research as I can to prepare myself for my next fishing trip, wherever that may be. I prefer video tutorials over reading, so YouTube has been extremely useful to me. There are a handful of pages that I follow, and one of the first that was recom- mended to me was the channel belonging to Nick Smith, AKA the Informative Fisherman, or “IF” to his subscribers. IF resides in my hometown of Stockton, California, and is fortunate enough to live in the Brookside neighborhood on the western side of the city. Not only does he have access to a private community lake, but he’s 36 Years Serving Sportsmen CONTINUED ON PG 21 State Water Board Approves Increased Flows for Lower San Joaquin River See Page 20 SPORTS EXPO PREVIEW........................8-12,15,18 BAJA ROUNDUP.................................................... 30 BASS FISHING SPOTLIGHT: Steve Pennaz......... 25 BULLETIN BOARD................................................... 3 FISH SNIFFER COUNTRY: Steve ‘Hippo’ Lau ...... 27 GO FOR IT: Staff....................................................... 2 HOW-TO: Cal Kellogg.............................................. 6 KAYAK FISHING SPOTLIGHT ................................. 5 MAP FEATURE: Dan Bacher.............................16-17 SPOTLIGHT ON CONSERVATION: Dan Bacher..... 20 STAFF TACKLE What We’re Using Cal Kellogg - fished Folsom Lake and got skunked despite trolling for 9 miles from his Hobie Pro Angler 14 kayak. Cal targeted trout and kings with his “hybrid” leadcore rigs consisting of Vance’s Tackle Rods, teamed with Abu Garcia 5500 line counter reels spooled as follows: 20 lb P-Line braid backing, 3 colors of Suffix 17 lb leadcore and an 18 foot 20 lb test fluorocarbon topshot tipped with a 48 inch 10 lb fluorocarbon leader. Using these rigs Cal employed Hum Dingers, Speedy Shiners, Yo-Zuri L Minnows, threaded worms and Arctic Fox Trolling Flies. Paul Kneeland - fished Englebright Reservoir with John Brassfield of Auburn in John’s 18’ Duckworth. They caught rainbow trout to 13 inches using a Lamiglas Fish Sniffer special 7’6” ultra light graphite downrigger rod with a Abu Garcia Revo MGX Extreme level wind reel loaded with 6 lb test Yozuri TopKnot fluorocarbon line. They trolled Vance’s and Sep’s Dodgers followed by nightcrawlers toplined at 1.5 mph. Dan Bacher - fished for rainbow trout at Halsey Forebay near Auburn.. He used a Berkley Ugly Stick GX2 6’ 6” medium action spinning rod, teamed up with a Shakespeare GX235 spinning reel filled with 6 lb. test P-Line CX Premium Flourocarbon Coated Line. He fished with rainbow Berkley PowerBait, 1/8 oz. gold and black Panther Martins and 2/5 oz. gold/red stripe Little Cleos.