"Shearching" for Striper

[Katz]

Question for the Delta Hunters.

When you are out looking for fish do you place much focus on spotting fish on the Sonar? I have had people say that they will run around looking for fish on the fish finder and then concentrate on where they find "marks". Like Darian seeing them on his last outing.

Or is it more about the depth, tide, cover, etc, etc. Meaning you find the suspicios locations and then Fish 'em to see who's home?

Thanks for the thoughts

Kraig

[JerryInLodi]

Kraig, I use my sonar more for depth and bottom make up rather than fish but on occasion have spotted fish. Usually I'm on a dead drift, no trolling motor, no engine, no NOISE in the boat. I'll see a definite fish shaped hump and cast to it and on occasion even get the take.

I bought a Bottomline sidefinder Buddy 4200. Worst investment I've ever made. It read fish even when it was out of the water! Totally useless. My brother-in-law has the old Buddy II. It seems much more reliable than the piece of junk I bought at twice the price.

[WinterrunRon]

Katz,

I have more years experience chasing stripers with conventional gear from my bass boat than I do with a fly rod.

Although a book could be written about the where and how to locate stripers in the Delta, tides have more to do with positioning the fish than anything.

For the depths fished with a fly rod, electronics are not very useful for FINDING stripers but invaluable for locating the structure stripers find and use to 1) ambush their prey and 2) travel. Once you find the spots they like, you can revisit these spots time and time again. When you learn, through experience, the times/tides the stripers are likely to be there, your apt to be more successful year after year.

On the other hand, I almost always use my electronics to locate schools of fish in deeper water (8-35ft) and use a technique called "spooning" or "jigging" with conventional gear to catch impressive numbers of stripers.

Now before you bash me for mentioning conventional gear, I want you to know two things:

1) I consider myself a fisherman, not a flyfisherman (I enjoy many different techniques) and I've been fishing with casting and spinning gear for stripers, steelhead, bass, shad and salmon much longer than I have with fly gear.

2) I don't know too many flyfishermen (one word?) that can say they've caught over 100 stripers (not a typo, that's 100+) 6lbs or better in a continuous 5 hour afternoon!

If you want to go out some time, I'd be glad to take you. I won't leave steelheading to pursue them, but when the large schools start to show up (mid-November/December) and the tides are favorable (tide charts are helpful to try and predict), I'm there!

All this is my personal opinion from personal experience having learned it over the years, not what I've heard... and my two cents worth.

I apologize for the long reply, you're probably sorry you asked.

Ron

[WinterrunRon]

Katz,

Here's a few photos I had saved...



9 Years old and landing his own!






I caught over 100 of these this day (most were 6-8lbs and it's likely not to happen again in my lifetime, so I consider myself very lucky) and kept two.


Every now and again, the electronics lie about it being a striper!

Katz,

Like everything else in this World, there are practical matters to consider. Can you afford to burn up $50 worth of gas looking for Stripers only to snag all your expensive flies on weeds? Or, do you want to settle down to a few productive spots that have a good current during tide change? I pick a spot where I can anchor and swing a fly without snagging.

If you notice the time of day in my Avatar it was getting dark. What I do is try to align the best current for a specific location with the exact time that darkness falls onto the Delta. (Or daylight if I get out there that early in the morning?) There is about a 4 hours difference for this optimum time depending on which end of the Delta I compute. I use software at home before going out there. Usually, during late November and early December. Sugar Barge decorates an old wood cabin cruiser with Christmas lights during that time of the year.

There is a 4-½ hour difference between Three Mile Slough (Sacramento River) and Grant Line Drawbridge. That gives quite a wide time span of optimum fishing at different locations. The small shaker stripers seem to be willing to bite at anytime, and are ferrous little fighters on a 6 weight fly rod. A great pass time while waiting for the big bite to turn on.

There are probably thousands of different methods used out there that catch Stripers. They are aggressive fish that will chase just about anything. Not much of a method challenge in my book.

[JerryInLodi]

WinterrunRon, what a great day that must have been, 100 6 pound fish. I've done that with trout but never with a fish that really pulls. Wondering, what year was that? It must have been a great class year for the fish to have schools of that size.

As far as type of gear, isn't that a personal thing? As long as the resource is protected and the gear is gentle on the fish, does it really matter whether it was a rapala, spoon or fly? Only to the guy holding the rod with the fish on!

Congratulations on what must have been a great day!

[WinterrunRon]

Jerry,

I believe the year was 2003 or 2004. I was over a school of fish numbering in the thousands that spanned over 1/2 mile (the birds were working this large an area) and didn't move much for the entire afternoon, which, in my experience, is unusual.

What was really interesting, however, after 30 or so fish, I decided to try several other methods/setups to catch them. Not a single bite. ONLY a 2 ounce spoon worked and when I went back to it, fish on before it hit the bottom just about every time.

I agree. Method and gear is very much a personal thing. I can't imagine missing out on the once in a lifetime opportunity like the one I had because I was too committed to one method or another. Versatility is the key to success (unless you're exceptionlly skilled at one method, which I am not!).

BTW, I know you guide, but if you ever want to take the day off to be the passenger/client, I'll let you know when I'm going and if you want to hop in my boat, we'll combine heads and get at 'em!

Ron

[JerryInLodi]

WinterrunRon, I'm ON! I'll buy gas and lunch! I have the last Saturday and Sunday open in November!

If it was 2003, those fish are now about 28 inches long and eleven pounds, if 2004 the fish would now be about 26 inches long and about nine pounds.

As to versatility, while no longer a spin fisherman, I frequently shook my head at some of the things I saw while fishing local lakes. I remember so many times while sitting out in my float tube fly fishing, watching a guy with a fly and bubble pull in fish after fish while the person next to him sat stolidly by, powerbait and sinker fishing forty feet deep while the fish were in the first two feet of water, and the powerbaiter grumbling at both the spinfisher and me for catching fish rather than catching a clue and asking if we could lend him a fly or help him out.

Things like that go on constantly. Some people just fish, "the way their daddy did," and never seem to want to change or learn.

Kraig, Jerry, and Ron,

The Striper Fest is next weekend, so I used my computations to find an optimum fishing spot located close to Sugar Barge on the evening of the 4th.

Using the Tide and Current Prediction URL at my Web Site for False River:

High Tide will be at 15:06 (3:06 PM)
Sunset at 17:04 (5:04 PM)
Low Tide 22:17 (10:17 PM)
Those figures are for where the Ferry Boat crosses False River.

The Tide will drop about 3 feet, so there will be plenty of current at Sunset. It should really start flowing at 6:00 PM in the Inlet to Franks track located at (38 02.893, -121 37.287 NAD27) I usually anchor and fish the slough that heads to the right.

It’s only 1.3 mile from the Gate located at (38 01.830, -121 36.788 NAD27) near Sugar Barge to the Inlet. With no GPS the Magnetic Bearing to the Inlet should be 324.3 degrees, and of course, the return trip in the dark to the Gate would be 144.3 Magnetic. That heading has plenty of snags, so take it slow and good luck.

It will take a while for those figures to line up for that spot again.

Use good judgment:

G.I.S. maps do not carry legal authority to determine a boundary or the location of fixed works. Navigate at your own risk using your own charts.

[andanb]

I have tried to use electronics (the buddy 4200) to find fish without success. I usually catch fish when looking for types of structure that fish might use to ambush prey as pointed out earlier, and when tides are favorable to drift by that structure as also indicated earlier. But...I find the electronics invaluable in monitoring the water temprature. The fish seem to key on this type of structure especially later in the winter when the temprature drops to around 50 degrees. It seems easier to find fish where you find "warmer" water as the temp drops too much. I'm not an expert these are just some of my observations.