The striped bass fishing out on the Delta waterways remains very good for those at anchor tossing their favorite bit of choice, but the salmon fishing has slowed down considerably over the past week although there are still some fish moving through the system into the upper river.  Most of the recent salmon fishing activity has been centered in the South Fork of the Mokelumne River where pulse flows out of Lake Camanche are attracting the fish along with two fish limit imposed on this body of water. Up the Sacramento area there are very few anglers targeting salmon, but there are fish to be caught. Recent catches are averaging 10 to 20 pounds with some taking their one fish limit early while others are coming in with nothing.  The best method continues to be trolling with Brads’s Cut Plugs behind an 11 inch E-Chip dodger with a Good Day release, but the double-bladed Silvertron spinner or Slammer Spinners are also working.

Striped bass fishing has also been wide open with live mud suckers or jumbo minnows along with fresh shad or sardines coated with garlic spray at Liberty Island, steamboat slough, above the Rio Vista Bridge, Antioch Public Fishing Pier or in the Mokelumne River from the most upstream to the Highway 12 Bridge. Outgoing tides have been best. Recently, a 22 pound striped bass came out of Broad Slough.  It was caught with soaking chicken livers. Fresh thread fin shad seems to be the bait choice for those at anchor in the Sherman Island areal and Decker Island where anglers continue to take their two fish limits daily.  Over off the Antioch Public Fishing Pier several larger striped bass were taken in 41 inch to 42 inch category recently.

For sturgeon you might want to fish the deeper sections off Pittsburg, Suisun Cut and Little Cut.  Anglers have been reporting that they have been catching some leopard shark recently due to the saltwater levels moving into the area.  This is due to the lack of freshwater downstream flows.  Off the Bench shoreline the salmon fishing has ben slow, but big striped bass are filling up the gap by anglers tossing live splitttails.  Also, the larger sized striped bass continue to come off the Firing Line and Garned Point at anchor tossing splittails.  They now say the legal limit of live splittails in possession is only two splittail.  It appears that many boats have more than the legal number splitttail in possession.  This is a new ruling that  even I wasn’t aware of until now.