Well if you are wondering if summer will ever get here, you are definitely not alone. This week we saw days with rain and highs only reaching the low to mid sixties. We had had calm days( though very few)  and windy days upwards of 30-40mph. The greatest thing about the Delta is there are always places to fish where you are somewhat protected from the elements. Though Mother Nature has be busy sending us on a whirlwind of weather patterns, the fish do not seem as effected by it as the anglers. Clients and myself saw plenty of fish over five lbs. like this one with Marcus from Fresno CA,

Though Senkos have been the big fish bait of choice the last few weeks, this nice 7lb fish fell for a Zoom Magnum Fluke. It was one of seven fish over five pounds for the week. The cooling  weather has seen our water temps for the most part drop from the high sixties to the low to mid sixties. There are still plenty of fish moving up on beds with the full moon, however I think it is setting up to be a great “New Moon” spawn,  just in time for the FLW National Guard event on the Delta. I have guided a few anglers fishing the event the last few weeks so lets hope they can expand on what I  have showed them.  The weather report shows temps climbing back into the 80’s by this weekend. I am guiding  Fri-Mon so we will see if  the warming trend helps the fish make up there minds as to what they are going to do.

Well the wind has settled a bit as of lately. Though we have had a few more days of sprinkles and temp drops, the big fish continue to move up. Last weeks clients were greeted with good weather, BIG bass, and a lot of fun. On Friday I went into a key big fish spawning area for me and the first fish I saw and hooked was right at 12lbs

Its to bad she was already spawned out or she may have hit 14+. My clients from CO the week before had there Western Regional Federation on the Delta last week also. I am happy to say that one of the CO anglers got big fish of the tourney on my water that was just shy of 10lbs. Another angler from CO won it for his state on the water that I guided his father to, and is now heading to the Nationals, so congrats to both. The water temp is still in the mid sixties, 64-66 degrees.  For some the bite has been very tough for numbers. I am still having great success with senkos and frogs. In some areas the beds are so plentiful you could walk across the backs of fish. Other top water bites like poppers and buzzbait’s should be starting up real soon as we get more and more post spawn fish. Good Luck out there, and never hesitate to ask me any questions you may have.

Well for the last week or so the wind has really been blowing things around. Not to mention some unusually low tides. Fishing on Wednesday eve with my good friend Robert Ip from SoCal was pretty good. We decided to fish an evening turkey shoot on the Delta out of Ladds. It all started off at 4:oo pm with a shot gun start. The wind that evening decided to prove all the weather reports wrong and blew at about 15-25 mph. With high hopes for some great sight fishing gone now, we decided to go into the same spawning areas and fish frogs and senkos. The bite was pretty tough for us, but the big fish decided they wanted to play. We ended the night with an 8.5 , 7, 5, and a couple of 2.5 lb fish to give us a total of 25lbs and the win. The low tide left some of the beds that I had found in previous days high and dry. The fish however did not go very far from the nests, in fact, most were in less than a foot of water buried in the weeds, and more than willing to smash through to eat our frogs. With that much grass, in that shallow of water, and the size of fish we were getting, we were both more than happy with the Phenix 703 XH frog rods we were throwing. Thursday the wind showed us that it could blow even harder than on Wednesday. Though the big fish eluded us we still had fun with plenty of 2lb fish on senkos, beavers, and drop shots. Frdiay was an off the water day. The weather was perfect, sunny, warm, and a whole lot calmer, leaving me with high hopes for my Saturday client. Weatherman was wrong again. As I drove to the Delta to launch from Russo’s marina on Franks Tract, I noticed the flag at the Chevron Gas Station was standing straight out. We launched in the morning and made our first little run only to find a few smaller fish. The wind was really blowing steady now at about 20 mph with gusts into the 30’s-40’s. I decided that since my client was pre-fishing for a tournament later this week and the reports called for wind. I would show him areas to catch nice fish where you had a little more protection. So, we headed to Disco. It was like a whole other world there. We stripped down to shorts and t-shirts and enjoyed a great day of fishing. though there are not as many big fish we still managed to land about 15 fish to 4.5lbs. Off the water by 3:30 after an other great day of fishing and even better friendship.

I went out to the Delta with a friend today for some fun-fishing. I didn’t really go out to go fishing and we were taking his boat out for a test run after quite a bit of work. I actually am in the process of restoring my friend’s boat. Nevertheless, I brought along a few rods and baits. The wind was up but my friend and I were able to get a few bites. At the end of the day, we landed a few 3 lbers. The fish are definitely in full spawning mode. We saw a lot of beds. As the wind started blowing, visibility went down and it became harder and harder to spot the beds.

Sidenote: As part of the restoration of my friend’s boat, we installed some Lowrance HDS-5’s on there. The high definition is night and day from the not high-definition fishfinders. We could really differentiate the bottom. All-in-all, we didn’t fish a whole lot but we managed to still get them.

I went out with a repeat customer this past Monday, March 28, 2010. We started out late. On this day, we got one an 8lber on a swimbait. We also got a 10.78 lber in less than 3 ft of water. It was hard to find to sight fish them in the stained water but we were able to get a good limit of over 25 lbs with only 4 hours of fishing. This is only the beginning. The Delta is just going to get better and better as the days get longer and the weather warms up.

It’s been a cold winter and the uncharacteristic much-needed rains have filled up our local reservoirs and lakes. For the California Delta, the black bass are staging up for the spawn. Depending on the temperature, of the numerous marinas and sloughs, some bass are already going through staging up for the spawn. It’s going to break wide open soon.