If you bring one in be sure to fill out the questionnaire and have your picture taken. We will put your picture on the internet for the Whole Wide World to see (with your permission)!!!!!!!!!!!

Christian's Report - Febuary 1, 2010

Ready or not this coming weekend is Super Bowl Weekend both for football and sturgeon fishing.

If you don’t like football you may end of watching winter Olympics previews on TV. If you don’t want to sturgeon fish in a derby this weekend it’s going to be difficult not to be impacted at the bait shop or a launching ramp if you are planning on fishing from Martinez to Rio Vista.

Rain or shine there will be some 1,800 or so anglers competing to win bragging rights to the largest sturgeon caught during the thirty hours of non stop fishing for The Original Super Sturgeon Derby XVI hosted at McAvoys Yacht Harbor in Bay Point.

With the spin of a wheel on Saturday morning at 7:00 am sharp the target length sturgeon to be caught we be announced on VHF channel 68. There will be hourly announcements on the radio as far as how many fish have been caught in or registered with the weigh master. There will be a total of six prizes awarded on Saturday and another six prizes awarded on Sunday for the same size fish. So you have twelve chances to win. Not too bad of odds these days.

The most difficult thing for this weekend is to try and find some grass or ghost shrimp that isn’t spoken for. All of the Bay Area bait shops are usually a mad house and depending on supply, things may be a little tough.

The most exciting news is that we made it through the 7 foot high tides this last weekend. No levees broke and no floating sheds floated away.

The tides at the I street bridge in Sacramento have dropped from 18 feet in a week to a very respectable level of 11 feet. Water flows at Sacramento have slowed as well from a gushing 50,000 CFS (cubic feet per second) to a more respectable flow of 35,000 CFS. The monitoring station stops monitoring flows at that site once it gets below 30,000 CFS. All things equal I would expect to see that some time before the weekend.

Yesterday’s high tide at the Rio Vista Bridge was a 7.13’ tide the low was a 4.13’ tide. That means that there still is lots of muddy water on the Sacramento River with plenty of debris in the water drifting to the ocean. It also means the flood current will continue to be a little slower than what the tide and current table says and the ebb current will be a little faster due to the residual run off from the rain storm a week ago.

Continue to put out plenty of scope on your anchor line and ground tackle. There is just enough flow that it would be very easy to loose your hold on the river bottom and start drifting with the current.

Remember to pick up a new 2010 fishing license to include the sturgeon report card and make sure to send last years report card in as it is now past due. It should have been turned in Saturday January 31, 2010.

While you are at it make sure that you put your new green 2011 boat registration stickers (tabs) on your boat and make sure that you keep a current copy of your boat registration on your boat at all times (that’s the law).

Most of the Delta law enforcement agencies will have a boat or two out there patrolling from the Martinez to the Rio Vista looking for boat registration and or fishing violations this weekend.

Be careful, there will be a lot of folks out on the water starting Friday night waiting to fish first thing Saturday morning. Be patient at the bait shop and the launching ramps because some of the guys have not used their boats since they put them up in last September or October.

Those tower lights that seem to be the rage at the moment keep them dark until you are getting ready to make a landing, all they do is ruin your night vision as well as for everyone else around you.

Be safe, see you on the water Chris

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.