The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta waterways entire system from Freeport to Suisun Bay is high, cold, and muddy with loads of grass and floating debris.  In looking at the Delta’s condition it will take time for the system to be fishable.  Your best bet presently is spend your time targeting sturgeon.  For your information Montezuma Slough has been very good as of late for sturgeon.  Good numbers of target length diamondbacks have been hooked and landed this past week.   Mike Pipkins of Gotcha Bait in Antioch said one of his customers bought 4 dozen ghost shrimp and he headed into Montezuma Slough where they hooked and landed 11 slot limit sturgeon.  The best baits continue to be salmon roe and ghost shrimp.

 

On the San Joaquin River there has not been much activity on striped bass fishing, but in the interim several largemouth bass tournaments were conducted out of Russo’s Marina on Bethel Island.  The New Jen Tournament produced several 5 fish limits exceeding 25 pounds by the team of Thomas and Steve Kanemoto with the big fish hitting the scales at 9.91 pounds.  The hot lure was spinnerbaits and chatter baits white in color with a double willow leaf blade.  One striped bass was caught in Frank’s Tract on a spinnerbait and the fish weighed an even 10 pounds.  Many sea lions have been observed on the San Joaquin where they have been seen barreling through the tules and eating largemouth bass.  As soon as the water clarity gets better so will the fishing.