A Day with Hatch....

[Darian]

My fishin' partner and I spent a great day Striper fishing with Maury Hatch (First Hatch Guide Service). Weather was clear, cold and without wind to start with. Later, it warmed up and was close to T-shirt conditions. More boats out than I've seen at this time of year than I've ever seen before. Still, lots of room. Unusually high tide in the AM, creating current flows. Those warmed burritos are really welcome in the AM chili air.

We ran long/west from Korth's to see if we could find some larger fish. Fish were in water from 2' to 20' in depth. At the first stop, I hooked up on a good sized fish that broke me off after a short fight. Good start!! Later I dropped a fish after fighting it for a few minutes. We'd check out new locations and move if the bite cooled.

My partner and I aren't fish counters but later we agreed that we caught around 25 fish for the day (including one Pike Minnow :rolleyes: ). Most fish were what Maury says are "all purpose Stripers" (1# - 3#) mixed in with a few dinks. We each caught a couple of larger models. My largest was 5#(?) and my partner caught a double digit (10#) fish near the last stop of the day.

Here's a few photo's from the trip:

http://s116.photobucket.com/user/jockscot/media/5striper1116-1_zps8o15k2y8.jpg.html

http://s116.photobucket.com/user/jockscot/media/5striper1116_zpskgugv7w7.jpg.html

http://s116.photobucket.com/user/jockscot/media/10striper1116-2_zpskbehyhbo.jpg.html

Once again, Maury worked hard and put us over fish. Another great day. :cool:

[Tony Buzolich]

As usual, Renee comes up with top fish of the day :) ... Tony

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Sounds good......thanks for the great post.

Hardy ever hear of someone breaking off a Striper?


What tippet (brand/model/pound test) do you use for Stripers in the Delta?

.

[Darian]

Bill,.... The break-off occurred near an opening in a berm but in about 10' of water. No apparent snags around.... Maury says he uses 20# test (straight/short) mono for leaders in the Delta. Seems like the choice to use the 20# in the Delta is a good one as much of the time is spent retrieving flies from snags of all sorts and most of the time, we were trying to cast as close to the tules as possible.

Tony,.... I'm not sure how that works but Renee does always seem to get a large fish on each trip we take. Of course, on every trip we take with guides she ends up on the bow for the day. She had been on an annual trip down there for the previous week. During that week, the entire party of 5 fishers didn't catch as many as we did in that one day.