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Fresh and Saltwater Bite

By Rob BelloniSeptember 24, 2001

Freshwater

I can feel it in the air:
The nights are getting long and the days are losing their linger. Fall is coming and the fish are going to be feeling it soon. It's time for crankbaits and brown jigs. Time for spinnerbaits and some mid-day topwater. It's time to start watching the weather again, looking for the fronts and keeping an eye on that pesky jet stream. And if they're planting trout in your neighborhood like say Chabot or San Pablo, it's time to break out the big wood again and chuck it.

What's up on the Delta?:
I spent last Sunday plying the waters with the Bass-n-Tubes gang and it felt really "in between" if that makes any sense. There were some fish that seemed to be still in a crawdad mode, and they were hitting a junebug tube bait pretty well, but there were other fish that seemed to be keying in on baitfish a little more and Dave Ryle and John Lake were 1st and 2nd on spooks and buzzbaits. Things will be headed more that way along with cranks and rattle traps I think. Not that fish in the delta aren't always eating craws but it should be long before you should be able to go out and get 20+ fish a day on rattle traps.

Where's the big ones at?:
Hey the big ones are were they always are. If you saw them sight fishing in the Spring they're still in there now when the lakes are low and dirty. Guys who are putting in the time are still getting them too. Coyote and Calero have been producing some nice fish lately and I managed to pick up a 6-2 from San Pablo not long ago although I haven't heard of too too many big ones over the summer out of there. San Pablo closes on 11/18/01 for the migratory waterfowl thing so get them and release them while you still can.

New forum:
I'm sure you've noticed by now, the site is now running the latest forum software from DC Forum. It has some fun features like polling and such. For everyone who is still trying to understand the mystery that is posting pictures, I hope to write some detailed help files soon.

Archives:
Why didn't I think of this about 4 years ago? I'm going to start archiving the main page every time it's updated as a reference for next year. Look to your right....

Saltwater

Predicting the local yellowtail bite:
Tonight as I drove home from Santa Barbara to Fremont and watched the lightning tear up the grey skies, my thoughts turned to fishing and as the biteson.com page loaded when I got home I scrolled straight to the Cisco's report. Sure enough 128 yellowtail today. How did I know? Watching the counts for the past 5 years or so I have noticed that in the spring and in the fall, when rain or fronts are on their way the local yellows at Anacapa and Santa Cruz just really seem to go on the bite. I've never heard this mentioned anywhere but it definitely seems to be true.

SB coastal options:
A friend of mine who kayak fishes a lot in the SB area gave me some scoop on the local bite yesterday. It seems to be generally true that the later in the year it gets, the inshore fishing will get better the further North you go. Well from what I gather there has been an excellent halibut bite on bait at Haskells and a little south. There has also been some legal seabass coming in from Refugio tight to the beach. Pete reports that Goleta is kind of killed right now because they dredged the slough so it's time to head north. I've done well in the past at El Capitan this year tubing the cove for halibut. Look for the fish shallow!

Guppie update:
Albacore are continuing to bite up and down the coast in what seems to be a very good year. Jizames was on a trip out of Morro that put 325 fish on the deck. That's sick for a one day! The interesting thing is that the really big ones haven't showed in numbers off the Central Coast quite yet. There have been fish to 40 caught but no big scores that I have heard of anyway. It should be soon.

Why does squid = seabass?:
I don't know but white seabass just love squid and there's no two ways about it. The Ventura based boats had some really good scores at Gull Island last week on the squid. I gather that the fish were the small to medium variety but the bite was very good for a couple days. There should be some more of that before winter really kicks in and you never know if the bigger units might show up. Fall can mean periods of very good ocean conditions for the outer islands. Time it right and enjoy it while it's still happening.

 
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