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Christian's Report - May 8, 2008

We continue to have a very decent spring striper run even though there is very little water in the Delta today (Tuesday) due to a very minus 1.8 foot tide at the Golden Gate and no dam releases in the hills.

As I was coming back from the coast wishing that I was abalone diving with this great tide and flat water I was happy to be back at the harbor with sunny skies and a little breeze going by.

Here’s the wrap up of what is going on in the West Delta. They are still catching sturgeon on the Sacramento River above Broad Slough according to Mike Kennedy of Oakley. He has been out most Saturdays with friends on his Farlon fishing in pretty much the same spot -- if it is working, why move. I’m told he caught and released a 50 inch green sturgeon this past weekend. That’s two for him in the past month or so.

Paul Wong of Antioch continues to do well on the San Joaquin River from buoy 17 eastward using Rat–l- traps for bait. Paul likes the outgoing current the best. One day last week fishing by himself he brought in two stripers measuring 30 & 34 inches and weighing 10 & 13 lbs. Both were males and both were still full of milk. While we were taking pictures of the fish at the fish cleaning station the milk was just oozing out of one of the fish. We still haven’t seen the fat females yet.

Paul is not the only striper slayer last week. Tyrone Barley of Sacramento was fishing with buddy Odel Cross of Elk Grove. Odel and Tyrone were fishing in 34 feet of water near the steam plant in Pittsburg where they caught a 36 inch striper weighing 20 lbs. They were using shad for bait.

The black bass bite is very strong as well. There are lots of fish laying up on the levee banks spawning but there are just as many fish that are post spawn and are active out on the open water. Walt and Marv went out fishing last Friday afternoon. Walt was thinking he had been working a little to hard lately around the harbor and needed a little down time so he and Marv went out to play. Walt ended up hooking up to an 8 lb black bass up near where Paul has been catching all of the stripers.

The river water is not as clear as I would like to see it for this time of year. We had some wind over the weekend and the pretty much stirred things up.

Last Thursday the Contra Costa Times came out with an article about how low the dams are in the Sierra’s and how there could be water rationing in the future. If you recall, I was writing about the drought when we were getting the rain storms back in January of this year. From a water standpoint be glad you are in the Delta. Currently Shasta Dam is down 63 feet, Oroville is down 143 feet and Folsom is down 43 feet. In looking at the current data, is seems the water gods are releasing water as fast as they are making it meaning as the snow pack that is melting it is being dumped into the river system to go down to Southern California.

I happy to report that our fish cleaning station is once again up and running it seems there was a relay switch that operates the water for the disposal that was malfunctioning all of that has been corrected.

This report and many other fine reports can be found at the Delta Chambers fishing report page!

Check out the water and weather pages for conditions around the Delta. Research does pay off.