Whats the word on Sacramento Salmon Season Opener?

Way to go Steve!
The Gibbs minnow! Man I see this dude all the time jigging a minnow, he gts em consistently.   
I wanna try that but I need to switch out the tele hook on it. The hook beds to be single with the size Gibbs I got.
I did find a smaller Gibbs this afternoon. Might try that. 

Hey Ricci, Thanks.  But like your post on how-to Salmon fish the AR, its all about getting on the water.  I look forward to the Striper hunt this year.  I really haven't vested much time in the AR Striper chase but I have been mapping out everything while I have been Salmon hunting.  Got my spots and techniques ready to go.  I'm thinking November when the weather breaks and the Salmon starts to cool, it will be time.  Oh how I miss the Port.  Just going after some crappie would be killer. 

Matt, I am just using my weighted hooks (not jig heads) that I use with Flukes.  The weight is wrapped around the hook just where the bend is so it also keeps the hook from flopping too much.  Less snagging too.

10/15 Sat.  I was originally going to do a Friday night 160 run but with two fish sitting in the refrigerator and a two day brine, I spent the afternoon and night running down brineing supplies and prepping the fish for smoking.  Molasses and honey for the ChuckE's Indian Candy recipe was the hardest hit as all this Salmon stuff is getting expensive, what am I going to do with leftover Molasses?  I guess I'll be Indian Candying everything.  It was 10pm before I got everything steaked up, brines mixed, steaks brined, and leftover steaks vacuum sealed.  By then I was kind of beat and the thought of hauling my kayak down to the water, the semi-stresses of night fishing, hauling my kayak back up the hill and loading, and then if I caught something having to clean it, then clean me, and then finally bed.  Maybe chasing after Salmon 1-5, but now, not that hardcore.  I figured, do an early bird and hit my Salmon hole but remembered there was going to be a big NCKA meet at Howe and that was really close, I can get there whenever because I have low expectations of the place and would do more socializing than anything.  Man with a plan.

Hit the parking lot around 6:15am with a bunch of guys already stacked up and waiting for the light.  I've got my kit down to a science so as soon as there was color in the sky I headed down stream.  Tough day.  Worked above the pump with spinners, jigged the hole below the pump, spinners to the walking bridge, jigged the strip below the walking bridge down to the Fair Oaks bridge, switched to trolling with a flatfish and spinner, back up to the walking bridge, jigged back down, repeat.  Finally, I figured I was shot gunning it too much and decided to focus on one technique and one spot.  Saw some decent activity in the Fair Oaks stretch (south side just upriver of the Fair Oaks bridge generally where the open side with the rock re-inforced area is and just before you get to the groves of trees (where the shore fisherman cast from).  I ended up spending about two hours just there doing ovals up and back before I got my one and only takedown.  K-14, chrome with chartreuse head, sardine wrap, switched from 1oz dropper to 2oz so that I could reduce my drop back and keep the lure on the ground.  Solid hit, great fighter and aerobatics.  Probably the best fight I've had while drift fishing.  Did a couple more loops then trolled it all the way back to the island above Howe (about another hour or more).  Finally off the water at 2:30.  Non-stop paddling for eight and a half hours for one fish.  Like Ricci says, one of the keys to catching is line in the water. Worked my ass off.  Missed the shore party which was kind of a bummer.

Nice meeting a ton of people today.  Big respect for the three Musketeers who were going to pound it out until the sun went down.  Hope you guys got something.  The PB's must have gotten the word the plastic navy was going to be out in force because there were only a couple of them out at any given time.  Nice sunny day on the water.

Got home and cleaned up.  Threw the fish in the refrigerator as I was burnt.  Food and a nap.  Contemplated a night run but all that for one more fish was a bit much.  Figured, clean the kitchen, clean the fish, write a report.  The catch today was the shiniest one so far.  Beautiful chromer.  Once I got it out and threw it on the measuring board (I was guessing barely twenty-twoish but on the board it stretched to a decent 26".  It was still completely covered in scales and would have been spotless had it not been for some rope burns.  I also noticed how fat it was.  Hmmmm.  Made the incision and what do you know.  Female with eggs.  Crazy.  Got roe.  Now, I will give it to Naoaki if he wants to eat it, otherwise I guess I will cure them (I am too far off the Japanese generations to want to eat them myself).  So, female and roe, check.

Nice one Steve. I thought I had heard of another fish bagged but wasn't sure. Sorry I missed meeting you today. C U next time, jim

Steve, your tha man! bravo, bravo! i might have to start follwing you around now!

10/16 Sun.  Upriver from I-80, anchored, k-14 chrome w/chartreuse head, sardine wrap, 6.5 hours, one take down, one landed, small jack. 
Water is moving so what used to be a ambush spot has turned into a super highway.  Not good.  Even the rollers have pretty much disappeared with so much water running through.



Bachelor's refrigerator during a successful Salmon season.

Top rack: Freshie Jack needing to be cleaned and processed.
Middle Rack: Paper bag full of Indian Candy smoke jerky Salmon courtesy of ChuckE's recipe (Man that dry brine really sucks out the moisture and shrinks those babies.)  A package of my last batch of smoked salmon that lost its seal (found a small pinhole in the middle of the bag). Bag or roe from Saturday that I need to go out and spend more money on Salmon for cure mix and then the corresponding roe rigs to use the roe, damn it just never stops.)
Bottom Rack:  Two plates of RayMac's Apple Brine smoked salmon that I need to vacuum seal and throw in the freezer.

I don't drink beer so have plenty of refrigerator space.

10/18 Tue.  Took an early day and headed out to Howe downstream. Put in a solid three hours of the usual mix of techniques.  Same old fish rising around teasing, nobody had caught anything.  No take downs, follows, or whhiff of any Salmon for me. 

10/19 Wed.  After the donut the day before, I felt the need for redemption.  So, this time I went out a bit earlier and got a good solid four hours in doing the usual. Met up with Auburn Trout Dude.  Same result as prior day.  Nada.  Not seeing much in the way of shiny fish jumping.  Most coming up are looking a bit tan.  Minimal amount of fishing pressure as it seems everybody except me got the message that the Salmon are on lock jaw.

10/20 Thu.  Spoke to Striper Slayer a few nights before about Roe technique.  Picked up all the necessary goodies the day before (more Salmon money - crap).  Spent the prior night rigging roe leaders with beads, spin-n-glo, roe knots, and #3 hooks.  Wrapped them on a scrap piece of pool noodle.  Cut up some of the roe I had been curing motherly for the last three days.  This time I figured that I would mix things up and do some roe drifting down the Watt stretch and then anchor up in the channel with some roe and kwikfish.  I had the morning free but was not all that motivated first light so ended up heading out around 9:30am.  Ten minutes from home to on the water.  Waters really moving.  As soon as I got out there I knew my plans were screwed.  There were four boats anchored up in the slot and another two trolling around them.  Crap.  I did a half hearted back bouncing attempt but with the current, the anchor lines, trying to back paddle and stay straight, all the while trying to keep the roe bouncing along the bottom was too much.  Made one zig zagging pass and then switched over to trolling back upstream with weighted kwikfish and a weighted spinner.  Water is cranking even in the slow moving waters by the power lines.  Made it most of the way back up and figured I would anchor up and check my emails.  Anchored up in my usual spot and dropped roe and a kwikfish.  Did mark some fish coming through but no take downs.  I hit up all the boats and three had fish.  All were small jacks which were starting to turn color.  No Chromers.  All caught first light and then nothing.  So, I guess the moral to the story is get on early and get off early.  I was off by noon with everybody else.  I need to get some fishing reports from the bay to see if the charter boats are still running Salmon charters.  If they are done then that would not be good for more big schools coming up.

I think I am going to try the dredger holes tonight for a change up to see if there is any action off hours.  Outside of that I want to give the channel above I-80 a shot with the roe to see if that works.  I am really looking forward to Sunday and Tiki.  My plan of attack is to go straight after some bluegills around the launch and then going to take a look around any rock piles for some crawdads.  Head out to the deep water channel, find a fishy looking spot, anchor up, and basically fish livies on one pole and Sardine strip on the other. Same sliding dropper as I am using for Salmon, right off the bottom.  Looking forward to fish for some Stripers.   

10/20 Thu Night.  The Howe and Watt sections are not my favorite.  They are in my backyard so it is definitely the go to place when time is limited.  It does have a wide variety of conditions allowing the use of pretty much all the techniques.  However, it is qwerky as hell and somewhat of a crap shoot.  Basically, I can't figure it out and lately it has been kicking my ass (three donuts in three days).  I hit it this morning for a couple of hours but with all the boat traffic, it was really just a shake down attempt at getting roe ready.  For that it was fine, but still three times for nada.  I read the Sac Bee fishing report which said that the American was full of fish and people (the guides) were catching every day.  Bull shit.  I would say since the weekend the average has dropped to maybe one fish per six vessels.  It also said that night fishing the dredger holes was bad.  Now, I know it is a shotgun report, but usually I find it somewhat accurate in what is going on.  However, this week I knew it was jacked because of not only the results I had been seeing, but also because we just cycled a full moon over the weekend and beginning of the week.  THat has to do something with migrating fish.  So, I theorized that since the Bee said fishing was great but it really sucked, then if they said night fishing sucked, it had to be good. So off I went.

8:00pm out the door.  Getting dark earlier does make night fishing a tad bit more liveable, however one thing that I have found is that there is pretty good boat traffic up until the magic hour of 9pm.  For some reason you go from a dozen boats out there trolling the route to none at 9:30pm.  That is kind of why even though it is already dark, I hold out till that magic hour.  A dozen boats cruising along a narrow path can't be good for fishing.  Anyway's, I was on the water pretty quickly having brought only one pole as there is no way to juggle two poles while drift'trolling and jigging.  I also left the anchor and kwikfish set-ups out as I wanted to focus on the tube fishing.  So basically, I had my pole, net, and flash box.  Quick and stealthy and way lighter.  The launch area is perfect in that it marks basically the cutover for the north side and south side channels.  Fishing the north side, just head straight across and head up river.  Fishing the downstream, stay on the south side and follow the channel.  Perfect.  Tonight I was going to fish the south side down to the 160 railroad bridge.  I knew there was a great hole just down from the launch and was going to key in on that area, but I also wanted to check out the deep pockets along the railroad and 160 bridge.  With a dozen boats it was kind of tight, but as I was drift jigging and they were super slow trolling, it wasn't too difficult to stay out of each others way.  Some of the boats were in stealth mode, but there were still a couple running their outboards with their overly bright 360 degree light shrouding the water.  That can't be good.  I did a full drift down to the railroad and fished the deep pocket and then drifted farther down and scouted out some of the channels.  I didn't mark any fish but also, none of the boats were really hitting those areas.  They all seemed to be drifting upstream either on the south or north side strips.  I did a slow troll back, but as I had to paddle there was no way to jig which I quickly found out to be rather ineffective.  Better to just line in and paddle back up and then jig down as you waste a lot of time slow paddling it up for no reason.  By the time I got back up, everybody had left.  Sweet.  I did a couple of drift a bit towards the center as I didn't want to get tied up with the little pump dock and that tree that is jammed in front of it.  An easy way to distinguish the hole is that as you leave the launch, go towards the center about 25-40 ft out and then just drift with the current.  The beginning of the hole is right when you come to the old dirt road/launch.  From there the depth drops from around 19' to 25-30ft and then just as you clear the little pump dock it quickly rises back up to 18'.  On my third drift, I took the inside route and just as I was coming up to the tree that is jammed on the dock, I made a couple of half paddles to just clear the branches.  I was right next to them maybe three feet away when my rod loaded up and I thought crap a snag right in the worst spot.  But just like at the port, the "snag" did a head shake and I knew I had fish on.  I thought I was screwed because it was pulling behind me upstream and it was right next to the dock and tree, and had it been a local Striper it would have just headed straight for the cover and broke me off, but fortunately it pulled against the tension which spun me around and pulled me out to the center of the river.  Sweet.  As soon as it did that I knew it was over.  I double pounded the hook set to make sure I was hooked up and then had a great drag busting time as it jumped, ran, and dove for the bottom.  Nothing like a strong fight.  I'm running 50lb Powerpro mainline with 40lb leader so I don't lose fish to breakoffs anymore.  As long as I have a good hook set, I can just enjoy the fight.  Finally broke its spirit and got it on its back, twisted my fish finder so its light glowed off the Salmon, and I was easily able to net it.  Freakin sweet.  That was one of my best Salmon catches.  I ended up doing another three drifts before the midnight hour for nothing but was happy with my single success.  Got spooked a little bit when I was just coming up to beach and some dude ran by.  I just saw the whites of his sneakers and a somewhat form.  He was all sorts of ninja quiet.  Got the kayak loaded up, came home, cleaned and prepped my spotless 28.5" buck.  This was the cleanest Salmon I've got this year.  Not a scale out of place and really thick and healthy.  What a good night.

Night fishing dredger holes, check.

JC Steve, great report. we did stay until after dark and Dennis got one right at the foot bridge.

Way to go Steve!

Nice write up man!
I don't know if I'm up for night fishing on the AR but you make it seem plausible!
Good looking fish too.

10/27 Thu.  Hooked up with Naoaki for a night run at the Port.  Since he was going straight from work we met up around 5:30pm and on the water at 6Pm after stopping off at Penny's for some Jumbos.  It was my intention to try out some Striper action and then when it got dark switch over to the glo-squid.  Cruised around the bridge/lock area towing a Jumbo on one and a Sardine filet on the other.  Ended up getting both taken down when a school of probably small Stripers came by.  Couldn't hook up on either.  Met a couple of the regulars that have been doing pretty well jigging/snagging with Gibbs Minnows.  There were a half dozen shore guys on the levee walls pitching jigs as well.  Saw one guy hook up with a nice Jack.  Could not see condition but it looked fairly silver.  About a half hour after the sun disappeared I got a hook up with the usual snag feel.  It played real soft as I brought it up from the bottom.  It went ape shit once it got to the top.  I got two runs out of it before my jig popped out.  To be honest, I didn't want to catch it.  I think I hit my Salmon wall.  I didn't even set the hook which was a good sign of not caring.  Anyways, no other action after that.  Naoaki pitched his glo kwikfish, tried my glo squid, and trolled around for nothing.  The water started out really high.  Higher than I have ever seen it.  This caused zero water movement from the gate as we were higher than the Sac River side.  It however dropped around four feet in the three hours we were there.  It was actually pretty cool to see.  By the end there was a good stream of water rushing out, but the action never really happened. 

10/28 Fri.  I decided to do a quick run out to Howe as I had some free time.  Cruised down from the launch trolling a kwikfish.  The water was way down and the water was almost stagnant.  It was looking pretty bad.  Reeled up and paddled back to the launch. 

10/29 Sat.  Sturgeon prep.

10/30 Sun.  Sturgeon fishing.  I was out at Prospect Slough just north of Cache Slough and Rio Vista town.  There were quite a few boats right out front of Rio Vista and another two dozen boats lined up on the deep water channel.  Everybody seemed to be anchored up with probably kwikfish.  I was fishing a quarter mile up so didn't see if they were catching anything. 

11/02 Wed.  I wanted to test out my new Sturgeon pole balancers so headed back out to the Port. Waited until my usual launch time at 8pm.  Surprisingly there were about a dozen vehicles parked in the lot and two other boats were launching at the same time I was.  That night there were over a half dozen on the water.  I stopped by the gate to throw the jig out and quickly ended up with a hookup which I did set the hook (I was actually kind of miffed the last time I lost that one as I hadn't lost a fish in over a month).  It somehow rolled the jig out and it swam free.  Pretty wild top water dance.  I was impressed.  Five minutes later I hooked up again and brought in a sad sack of a Salmon.  Brown and had sores.  Quick release on that one.  Had my hours worth of fun so headed out to me spot for some Stripers.  Balance beams worked excellent.  Hooked up with eight fish biggest one 29.5". Used filets off of two Sardines, very economical.  My primary spot below the bright white beams of the crane was darkened as they did not have the lights on.  Switched over to my spot next to the tug boats.  Out of bait I went back to the gate for a last fight.  Took a little longer but hooked up with a little Jack.  Fought really hard and from the top he looked a bit dark but not worse for wear.  Figured I could check out the dark fish quality.


Dark Salmon Quality.  I've got all really nice Chromers this year so have been pretty fortunate.  Had been reading about the deterioration of the quality after the Salmon had been in the fresh water system for too long.  I kept my last fish to check it out.  When I brought it home it did look even rougher than when I saw it in the dark with only my head lamp.  The top was a dark spotted color which looked the same as a trout.  The underside was bleached white I am assuming from scraping along the bottom.  The face had turned really dark with some lighter patches showing up.  Although there was no visible deterioration you can tell that the fish had lost weight.  The texture was still firm and felt solid although skinnier than my other fish.  Fileting it out you can tell the texture of the meat was rather mushy.  After cutting through the skin, the meat was very easy to cut through.  Where you could really tell the mushiness of the meat was when you were cutting the fillet off the bone.  It was almost like you were able to push the meat off the bone.  The filets were considerably softer and kind of juicy with not much firmness.  The color was where you could really tell that this was not going to be good.  They had a pinkness to them much like you might find in a trout but compared to the Chromers I had been catching it was rather pale.  It was basically exactly what you would get if you cut off a bright red filet and then let it sit under running water for a a couple of days.  It would basically wash out all the life out of the filet leaving just the bare sinews.  Kind of like steak if you leave it out and unrefrigerated. 

For me, I think I will pass on the darker Salmon even for smoking.  Sure it would be smoked salmon and it would probably taste okay based on the fact that you were using a good tasting brine, but the actual salmon flavor would not be there so really it would be like smoking tofu.  I just watched a show on Salmon as well and the nutritionist was explaining the differences between farm raised Salmon and Wild Salmon caught in the Pacific North West.  She said even though the Farm raised looks almost equivalent (albeit not as vibrant of a red), the nutrion that you obtain from the wild is considerably better as it is the food that the Salmon are eating that contributes to the healthiness of the fish.  In the wild the Salmon eat a more healthy diet than farm raised and therefore the quality and nutrition of the Salmon is better.  If I was on the hunt for some Chromers (which are and will still be passing through the system), I would probably concentrate on fishing the Sac or night fishing the Dredger Holes on the American.  Fishing pressure has dropped off considerably so if you are willing to put in the time and effort you can still pick up quality fish.  I'll still dabble a bit this month and I'm sure I will pick up a few more Chromers.  Just got to put the work in.

Wow, yucky looking fillet there.....
Those steaks look great though! Way to go on the striper!