The Delta’s Fall and Winter striper season started this month and though there hasn’t been a lot of fish in the system yet, there’s been enough action between baby stripers, large mouths, a few nice stipers, and one particulary HUGE moe (that broke me off) to keep me anxious to continue going back for more. And the weather has been BEAUTIFUL!



Stripers come in all sizes

As do the Large Mouths

With clear skies and no wind, you couldn’t ask for more beautiful weather. This was a shot coming across Franks Tract in the morning. The white dot is the moon.

And the bridge on the way to Mildred

Dave came out to fish an evening with me


I found a spread-out scool of dinks smacking bait on the surface in the afternoon and had a tuff time leaving to go pick Dave up at the marina. When I returned a few hours later with Dave, I was suprised to see they were still there and still chasing the bait. When it comes to surface action, it doesn’t matter to me what size the fish are. I was having a blast as the little guys would chase, slap, smack, and eventually inhale my crease fly.



When I ran into Jose Silva and mentioned that my outboard was acting up on me he told me to leave my boat at the marina and fish with him from his boat. Jose is a well known fly fishing fanatic with a reputation for being a fish catching machine. He’s got years of experience on the delta and is one of the friendliest guys you could ever fish with. Obviously he didn’t need to twist my arm.

I couldn’t resist this picture when we came back to the marina in the afternoon and found my little boat surrounded by all these offshore raceboats.


Fishing with Jose pretty much went like this, I cast 75′, he casts 80′. I catch a 14 inch striper he catches a 15 incher. I get a nice largemouth off of a point, he gets two. I tell him there can’t possibly be another fish in that pocket he’s just caught a dozen fish out of, he looks at me and says, “You sure about that”? and then catches 5 more!

We had a great time, caught a lot of fish, and laughed the entire time.