Shag Slough/Liberty Island/Prospect Slough Exploration/Fishing Trip 12-21

Sounds like an interesting trip so far.  I'm curious if you see signs of fish.

Glad to hear you got out there and even more happy to here you sharing your launch spot!  Hasn't always been the case for that area, ( even with folks on this site),  the sharing, that is.  Keep sending the reports.  I am gonna pinch off the barbs on my old rigs and get ready for a trip after the first of the year.  We could use a good gully washer to stir them up!

Glad to hear you got out there and even more happy to here you sharing your launch spot!  Hasn't always been the case for that area, ( even with folks on this site),  the sharing, that is.  Keep sending the reports.  I am gonna pinch off the barbs on my old rigs and get ready for a trip after the first of the year.  We could use a good gully washer to stir them up!

If I'm not mistaken the sturgeon rigs are barbless and only single hooks. My old ones have two hooks.

You are correct Ken. How did you end up today?

Well I made it back alive. I started my fishing where Prospect Slough merges with the end of the Toe Drain. I didn't see anything on my FF. Later I headed north to check things out. I was marking fish in a few different spots along the way. I anchored up where Prospect Slough ends or turns, I'm not sure if is still called Prospect when it turns left. Anyway at the intersection there is a nice hole that looked to be full of fish. Not that any of them even nibbled on my bait. I don't know if I have the wrong bait, wrong tide, wrong time, wrong moon or maybe I'm just wearing the wrong color clothes. 

I launched straight past the gate on the bridge at 6:45am. High tide at Rio Vista was 7:07am and up there the tide is about an hour later. The tide was up to 3.6 feet. The water was deep enough to float my boat. I headed east and stayed to the right at the first "Y". I came to a spot with a small channel crossing my path. I let the tide push me left and the water was very shallow over there. I moved back over and continued on. I kept to the left at the next "Y" and moved out into open water. When I maneuvered through the two "Y"s it was very narrow but deep enough. Especially in the second one, I didn't have room to make paddle strokes. I just pushed with my paddle and made it through.  I crossed the open water with ease. It was running about 2 1/2 feet deep. I saw a few duck hunters out there. I moved to the right as I crossed so I could enter the channel heading south on the far side of the open water. The channel was at least as wide as a two lane road and about 8-10 ft deep. After I passed out of the channel I turned left and headed for the large break in the levee and entered Prospect Slough. When I came past the break in the levee about a hour from low tide there was no way to cross the broken levee, so you definitely need higher water to make it. I returned to my vehicle by heading west on Prospect Slough or whatever it is called. It makes several 90 degree turns along the way. On the 4th leg you go by an opening to a large "lake". I want to check it out someday to see if I can get back to the launch from there. Today I just kept going until I reached Shag Slough and turned left for the final leg. When I got to the Shag Slough launch it was nearly dark and was high tide again. Also the weather was great, almost no wind at all.  If you look at Google Earth you can get a pretty good idea of my path. I was able to use google maps on my phone to navigate. I will trace the path on the google map image and post up a screen shot when I get a chance.

Barefoot1 - There might be a reason that not many reports directly reference this location....

TrailDad - Thanks for the report!!!

We're you Sturgeon or Striper fishing? I've fished foe a month of Sundays and not caught one. And then gone out and caught Five in one evening. You just never know. Sturgeon that is.

We're you Sturgeon or Striper fishing? I've fished foe a month of Sundays and not caught one. And then gone out and caught Five in one evening. You just never know. Sturgeon that is.

I had roe and ghost shrimp for bait. I was using two rods so I put the roe on my sturgeon rig and the shrimp on the striper rig. I also threw a few lures and trolled a bit. I meant to bring some chicken livers for the Stripers but forgot them.

Ok I got some photos to add. Also I wanted to note that I might have made an error in the description earlier. After looking at google maps it looks like both narrow areas came after the section with the cross channel that pushed me into the shallow water. Now for the photos.

A beautiful morning.

Here is the approximate path I took across Liberty Island.

Then I headed down and fished a while before heading north. I fished again up at the top where the line takes a left turn. Then I continued on to complete the loop for around 7 1/2 miles.

It is hard to see through the reflection, but this is my FF when I was fishing up at the top corner.

My ff goes haywire at that top corner too, but I can't seem to catch anything but small stripers and bullheads there.

I see 8 fish and 11 fish ID symbols. I would say those are all stripers.  I don't use fish ID. It clutters the screen too much and a lot of times shows stuff that is not fish as fish.

I see 8 fish and 11 fish ID symbols. I would say those are all stripers.  I don't use fish ID. It clutters the screen too much and a lot of times shows stuff that is not fish as fish.

I usually keep fish ID off also. There was so much clutter on the screen I turned it on to see what it would ID.