San Quentin paddling: or the story of a thousand casts

for one nice striper - 29"

Launched near daylight from windsurfer launch. Went up corte madera creek in search of cleaner water.  Found it, but no marks.
saw loads of bait popping on the surface.  Finally, under the 101 bridge saw bait scatter - had to be fish chasing. Paddled over to troll through the area- and the water was between 1 and 2.5 feet deep. Ok, change of plans.  Set up upwind and downcurrent.  Cast, cast, cast- all fan casting into the channel area. Saw what had to be a boil- cast to it- BAM, fish on.
wait for a thousand years- casting to popping bait...no love.

Paddle out trolling, to the ferry channel- no love
to the guard tower cove - no love
to quentin - no love
to the bridge - no love

a zilion miles of paddling for ONE striper.

The good news is that the water was clear enough- just barely, and there was TONS of bait.  They'll be there, jsut need the wind to stop to clear the water that last bit.

Nice!  I remember this same time last year, we were catching up to 20 to 30 a day.

Thanks for the scouting report Steve - at least you got a lot of exercise 

you keep and eat a fish like that?  I'm kind of curious, since the mercury warnings have put me quite off of keeping and eating hardly any striper, ever.  This can be hard to explain to my friends, some of whom seem to suspect me of just being greedy

I paddled all around there last Thursday and didn't even get one fish for my trouble!  Good to hear that things might be improving, finally.

I personally, don't eat the fish that live year round in the bay/delta. halibut, salmon- i'm good with, the rest i just catch and release.  I know ChuckE eat stripers occassionally

Probably a good bet!  If anyone is in doubt, they can spend 25 clams on a mercury test:

https://secureusa.greenpeace.org/mercury/

I'm going to get one, and if it's bad, see about a second opinion.

we're all paying for a few million ounces of gold 150 years ago..