I decided to hit up the delta to prefish for Gilroy bassmasters club tournament next weekend and the Snag Proof tournament the weekend after. In July, I really didn't fish that often as the jet skiiers seem to chase me off the lakes/rivers when the weather warms up. Since my uncle owns part of an island about 5 min from Rivers End (a.k.a. Dale's) as a vacation house I decided to spend the weekend and fish the south end of the delta and get in some wakeboarding.

Nothing really exciting which requires a play by play for the weekend, so i'll just give the basic info.

Sat 8/3 - low tide weekend:
Caught 18 bass + 9 stipers (once I located the bait fish) and a 4lb catfish on a Lucky Craft LV-500 on a Black/Gold which was very odd. Most of the bass came on crank baits as I was trying to find the right color combination that they wanted. All crankbait fish were from .5 lbs - 1.5 lbs and all 9 stipers hit crankbaits as well. Since these were small fish I can't honestly say that the color made any difference as small fish will hit just about anything they can see sometimes plus I was experimenting with new colors/retrieves from my goto colors.

I also caught a 2.6, 3.5 and a 4.1 pitching a black/blue senko around heavy cover/docks while using PowerPro line in 65lb test on baitcasting and 35lb test on spinning reals. I think I'm switching to PowerPro line for all soft plastic/senko/jig fishing from here on out. Very pleased with the results and feel with very little backlash w/ no breaks all weekend. Also had 5 blow ups on the frog but nothing landed -- from what I've been told high tide or tide coming in is a more productive time to use the frog even though I threw it for about 85% of the day.

Sun 8/4 - still low tide but coming in a bit:
Same approach as yesterday with the frog. I switched from using my Lamglas Delta Frog Rod (Power 7) with a 6:1 Curado to my Gloomis CBR845 and a 5:1 Curado (still using PowerPro) and fished some new water that I saw while out Wakeboarding with my cousin. I noticed that this rod allowed me to throw the frog about 50%-75% farther than with the Power 7 rod due to the softer tip, however the 5:1 Curado just wasn't fast enough for me for using the frog as a search bait. Next trip I'm going to switch the two reels and use the Frog rod as for the jig (as I normally do in heavy cover) and use the CBR845 for the frog. I also spoke with some guys who were doing fairly well throwing spinner baits, however I left that box at home. I also pitched the senko for 3 small fish in heavy cover no bigger than 1.5lbs each and hit 6 more small fish on crankbaits and no stipers. Still nothing on the frog except for a handful of blow ups.


Next week's approach for the tournament:
I should be back up that way this coming Friday and I'm narrowing my bait selection by using senkos, spinnerbaits, only 2 colors of LV-500 crankbaits this time (my goto bait w/ the 2 I know that catch fish at the delta), jig/madman craw trailer (as a backup) and the snag proof frog (I need to get more time in on the frog) and if all else fails I'll make a long run south to Rivers End if I'm having trouble catching a limit (1/3 tank gas round trip-- ouch).


Questions:
Where have all the bait fish gone this time of year? And where are the big hogs hiding come Aug in the delta? Just about everyone I ran into was having a problem catching a bass over 5lbs? Have all of the tournaments relocated these bass near the popular launch ramps? Maybe I should just target those areas instead.

Anyway, fun weekend however nothing of any real size. I'm still trying to figure out a pattern for fishing the delta at low tide. Anyone have any suggestions?


Vince
vince@theblankslate.com