Saturday, March 26, 2011

Gale Sayers once said, “All I need is an inch of daylight”

It’s been rainy here in Northern California. I haven’t been on the water in weeks.
 I just couldn’t give in to cabin fever.
The kids were out of school for spring break. We saw that the weather was just ok. At least enough to fish close to home.
  The Carquinez Straits is a great place to get out of the wind. It’s a location just loaded with history. Remnants of old Railroad ferry docks, mysterious docks and dreams of what the straits might have been back in the late 1800s’ as California took on the burden of the greatest location on earth.
  This time of year the hills are  their greenest. They are soothing ,rolling hills with small to large groups of trees  eucalyptus, oaks and scrub brush.  Just think in a few months those hills will be golden.

  Our day started with a bumpy boat ride out to San Pablo bay with the flats as our destination.  I figured, if the weather wasn’t as bad as the weatherman said, we just might be able to catch a few sturgeons in the flats. As soon as we got around the Vallejo Rockwall we realized we better head for some water that’s going to be a little easier to fish. 
 Carquinez Straits here we come!

We looked around the Ozol pier, Whites landing and the Brick yard.  We stopped in 25 foot of water at Whites landing, an old dock with a hut and some raggedy old pilings.  You could hear the turkey on the hill talking and making a ruckus. People walked the bank and a few fishermen were out on the banks. Maybe that’s what we heard. They just sounded like Turkeys.
Josh set up this trip at the last minute and really wanted his friend Dominick to hook and land a sturgeon. We accomplished our task. Dominick landed a 53 ½ inch sturgeon that he could barely hold up for a photo. Congratulations Dominick. You fought that fish like a pro.

The outgoing current slowed and it was time to pick our incoming spot. We picked up our stuff and started looking. We found a few here and there, mostly seeing groups of fish in 2’s and 3’s . We set up on a hump at the end of a very deep hole and waited for things to get right.  Sturgeons have a tendency to bite as the current slows down or just as the current starts to speed up.

Note: Plan your trips so you have the opportunity to take advantage of tidal and current flucuations. Especially if you are fishing deeper water and holes. Look at the above picture. Whats going to happen when the current is going in. Then whats going to happen on the out going. Knowing these flucuations are going to happen every 5-6 hours ,use those Current windows or lack of, to look for fish. Search at slack tide and set up ahead of the fish. Just because they didnt bite on the ebb dosent mean the flood woun't be the better/best tide of the day. Especially at Ozol  
Just as the tide got as right as it was going to get, we had a flurry of action that resulted in 2 more very nice keepers, 56 inches and 53 inches.


This trip was a good one! We had a chance to get out of the house and hook a few fish.  


NOTE: This trip Our bait choices were Ghost shrimp , Pile worms and Salmon Roe. We are fishing 8 rods, only 3 of our rods had something other then Roe on them. I am a firm beliver that late winter and early spring is the time to use Salmon roe. Flat out, the stuff is expensive. Save your money early season. After febuary break out the Salmon roe and use allot of it. We are using snelled OWNER 7/0  kale hooks with allot of Magic thread. I refuse to use cured roe, The stuff is expensive enough.

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