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The California Delta is one of the most unique water ways to fish in California. In one day, on a fast boat, you can fish Striped Bass, Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Carp and so much more. All these different option makes this one of my favorite place to fish. On a recent trip my dad and I had our eye set on the Striped Bass.

Delta-Striped-Bass-Fishing

So, we loaded up our 8 to 10 weights along with the boat and the rest of our gear to made the nine-hour drive to Bythle Island and the California Delta. Our anticipation grew more and more just like a kid counting down the days to Christmas. Until we finally get poke our heads over the sea wall to get out first glimpse of Franks Trac on the California Delta.

 Franks-Trac-Sugar-Barge

 

We dropped the boat in, rigged up and headed out as soon as possible. We checked out a couple of our new spots without much luck. Thankfully that quick evening session helped us eliminate a bunch of dead water. The next morning, we woke up to a cold smoky morning and high hopes. We Headed straight to my favorite spot on the main river.

 

Smoke-Filled-Morning

 

After the 20 min run found what we were looking for…… Mark on our fish finder. Not just a few but an absolute ton for them.

 

Striper-meter-Marks

 

Our first casts got hammered right away. Unfortunately, we had found the shaker (sub-legal Striper) strong hold. We stayed until we got our fill of shakers.

 

Small-Striped-Bass

 

We changed our game from fishing deep water current edges to shallow water flats with deep weed/structure and drop offs. This was the ticket for our larger fish. Right away we were picking off solid 3 to 5 pound fish. This was not a numbers game. We only had a few shots at the spots with the right conditions then the fish would spook.

 

California-Delta-Striped-Bass

 

We came up to a small point with weeds and a good current edge. We worked the edges hard for just a few short Stripers. Finally switched up to a Dustin’s Destoryer in Shad. I got hammered as soon as I made the first strip off the weed edge. It ended up being a good 8 to 9 pound fish.

 

Fly-Fishing-Striped-Bass

It was nice to finally get that solid fish to the boat. The rest of the time me moved back and forth from deep to shallow water. This made sure we kept getting a bend in the rod with a hand full of solid fish. One of the key was switching from weighted flies to unweighted flies as we fished different locations.

 

Striped-Bass-Flies

 

Another key to weed was to fish big flies that moves a ton of water. This also weeded out the smaller fish, at times.

 

Big-Fly-Small-Fish

 

The last key was to layer up. That run in the morning is really, really, really cold. It could be in the 30’s in the morning and 70s in the middle of the day.

 

Layer-up

 

Overall it was a great trip with my dad. I can’t wait for my next trip up for the Bass-N-Fly in the spring of 2019.

 

Fly-Fishing-Boat