Wed. Striper deepthroat, kitty takes bait

That's striper, not stripper . . . and the kitty doesn't like water.

Ran off to the Delta Wednesday in search of linesides. Kinda spur of the moment - decided late Tue night, so no hook-up posted. Plan was to get an extra early start to catch some secret bait, but plans change, especially when you sleep through the alarm...No problem, though. It was still a quarter-to-early, so grabbed some frozen chovies & shad and on my way. First light appeared and commuters were hittin' the road--fortunately, in the other direction.

Good morning, Sunshine!

The sun was HUGE as it rose above the horizon. This pic does not do it justice.

Destination:  Sherman Island. Low on funds these days so I launched off the levee. The plan was to launch at a windsurf site but I found a suitable place the bankies had cleared. A piece of carpet helped slide over a couple larger rocks. No launch fees but 2 toll crossings to get there. 
Ah, but thank you, FasTrak! 

Intended to get on the water at slack but didn't get out until the incoming began. No big deal, it wasn't moving too fast yet and there wasn't even a breeze, so it was an easy paddle out and no need to go far.

Wind? What wind?


Trolled a Rat-L-Trap out to the spot for no hits. It took me a while to figure out just where I wanted to be, but marked quite a few fish along the way. After a few attempts to get the anchor to hold I finally got settled and dropped some bait.

Tried both the anchovies & shad and had lots of small taps on both. Stripers were there and sturgeon are making a big showing in the area. Fish were jumping around all day. Never got a good look at one in air but they weren't being shy - felt like one could've landed in my lap at any moment...

Although, I'd gotten some hits, I wasn't hooking anything so I decided to go my foolproof method and dug out my lunch from the front hatch. Surely the fish were just waiting to for me to be distracted as I stuffed my mouth with PB&J and Safeway generic Oreo cookies...

Well, didn't quite work but shortly after the tide turned, the rod got hammered! Set the hook hard but that fish had probably already done the job. Fought hard but came in steadily and I almost had it to the surface. Then, with blue sky and yellow plastic in sight, it said hell no and yanked some line off the reel and made a last ditch run. But to no avail - she was hooked deep in the throat (do fish technically have throats?) and wasn't going anywhere except in my net.

Not a trophy, but 30" and strong & healthy.


Gripped


Sparkle


Since it wanted the hook so bad I cut the line as short as I could & let it keep the hook. Took some photos and then a kick & a splash and back it went into the cold murky depths.

Caught on the shad - frozen. Not filleted, either. I would have cut the shad but I forgot my knife; only had pliers. Had plenty of hits on the frozen anchovies as well.
Water temp never rose above 52 and it was a brisk but sunny day. Actually almost got warm for a minute.

Here's where I was. Ended up right under the lines for a while after the current dragged the anchor a bit. Don't like being under those things...

Gimme power


Sustainable?


Paddled back in as the sun was setting. Beautiful evening.

Here's a moon shot; can't remember what time it was.



So what's all this about a bait-stealing kitty, you ask?
Well, I decided to throw out a line as I was packing up and left my bait sitting next to the rod.
I came down to check on it and noticed a couple zip-lock bags all torn open on the ground and thought to myself, some a-hole tore his bait out of the bags & just threw them on the rocks. There was a bunch of other litter & crap all around but this was clearly fresh and had just been thrown down the same day. (BTW, lots of the garbage was used fuel canisters).

I went to pick up the torn-up bags and noticed some scraps of little fish, like sardines or something. Wait a minute, those aren't sardines, they're shad...and now that I think of it, I had my shad in two zip-locks... I look in my insulated bait bag - anchovies yes...shad NO! Hey, those are my shad shreds on the ground!

Come to think of it, I did see a tailless feral cat trotting along the levee as I was paddling in. It helped itself to my leftover bait while I was putting stuff back in the truck. No loss for me since it was the end of the day and would've thrown out the leftover bait anyway. This way there's no wasted bait and the pussy got fed. 

 

Note to self:  report started with stripper denial and ended with some pussy reference...  I was riveted...

Nice one. 

Beautiful day, Beautiful fish,  thanks for the report.

Nice conditions, way to go.  I agree, it is kind of freaky sitting under the power lines while on the water.  You can usually hear the high voltage crackling above.

Enjoyable read this morning. Nice looking stripper..Oh I mean striper! And here I thought I was the only one using the "Eat some lunch or get on the cell phone trick"  . That is usually when I get the bite of the day. Great looking day on the water.

Thanks for the report and yeah, I too was riveted as Abking said about the stripper and pussy references. May have to switch to sardines  .

Ray

Thanks a lot man...now my work place has blocked this website!   

I used to bait fish that exact spot from the bank 10 years ago.  Good to see it still holds fish.

Bryan

Thanks for the great read and awesome pictures pisciform. Yea, like HobieBlue
said, I too was blocked this morning from reading your post. It must be those key
words you used.

Jedmo

thanks for the report. i was just wondering why you wouldn't keep that striper? was it because it came out of the delta  waters?

thanks for the report. i was just wondering why you wouldn't keep that striper? was it because it came out of the delta  waters?

It was just a little bigger than the ones I prefer to harvest. Once they get this size, I like to let them go and hopefully reproduce. If they've made it this long, they've earned their freedom! 
True, I wouldn't want to eat too much fish from the delta but this fish probably hadn't been there all year so that's not such a big deal. It would actually be a good size fish to keep but a little more than I can use at them moment.

Nice shots!! and NICER Stiper!!  You got it when that place is BEST!! whne there is no WIND!!...and that is a rare!
Thanks for the report and WTGo on Hookin that fish!!.....it can get windy&rippin through there...be careful.