Tony Buzolich
02-17-2008, 07:49 AM
For the past month there have been quite a few large stripers taken on the Feather between Shanghai Bend Falls and the mouth of the Bear. These are being taken mostly at night using pencil poppers or surface lures and I believe are resident fish that decided not to migrate with the rest of the group.
This past week and a half the Dept.of F&G has been dumping the steelhead smolt that evrybody seems to wait for up here. This really rings the dinner bell for the stripers and things start happening. The smolt this year are yearling fish and are quite large about 10". The dumping ended this past Friday.
What I'm glad to see is that smaller schoolie size fish are showing this week too. This means that the start of the spring run has begun. We had one nine pounder brought in yesterday for weighing along with several sturgeon.
Please understand, I run the fly fishing department in one of northern California's oldest bait and tackle stores, that being Johnson's in Yuba City. By working here I get to see and hear pretty much everything that's going on in our area and that includes all kinds of fish and game from stripers and sturgeon to turkeys to deer to pigs. Along with this I also get to hear where things are happening.
We do not endorse the taking of big fish in any way and tell ALL of our customers about the harm of killing bigger fish. We do try and educate the public, but still big fish do come in.
The water on the Feather is very low and muddy throughout the lower river with only 1100cfs and boats are very limited to where they can go because of this. Water temps are still in the mid 40's.
On the Sac, we've gotten several reports of stripers being taken at Knights Landing.
So with this it seems the spring run has started. This is only the start though and things will continue to get better through the next couple of months.
TONY
This past week and a half the Dept.of F&G has been dumping the steelhead smolt that evrybody seems to wait for up here. This really rings the dinner bell for the stripers and things start happening. The smolt this year are yearling fish and are quite large about 10". The dumping ended this past Friday.
What I'm glad to see is that smaller schoolie size fish are showing this week too. This means that the start of the spring run has begun. We had one nine pounder brought in yesterday for weighing along with several sturgeon.
Please understand, I run the fly fishing department in one of northern California's oldest bait and tackle stores, that being Johnson's in Yuba City. By working here I get to see and hear pretty much everything that's going on in our area and that includes all kinds of fish and game from stripers and sturgeon to turkeys to deer to pigs. Along with this I also get to hear where things are happening.
We do not endorse the taking of big fish in any way and tell ALL of our customers about the harm of killing bigger fish. We do try and educate the public, but still big fish do come in.
The water on the Feather is very low and muddy throughout the lower river with only 1100cfs and boats are very limited to where they can go because of this. Water temps are still in the mid 40's.
On the Sac, we've gotten several reports of stripers being taken at Knights Landing.
So with this it seems the spring run has started. This is only the start though and things will continue to get better through the next couple of months.
TONY