Today's trip was very foggy, cold morning about 39° air temps with water temps at 51°. We started out looking for some schools of fish and only cruising about 3 to 4 knots with radar and line of sight along the shore as our guide. We fished 3 spots this trip and caught 3 catfish that were pan sized and 3 Stripers with only 1 keeper. 2 of the Stripers were just under legal size of 18" minimum. We drifted some live bait, but all fish today came on cut sardines in about 25 feet of water. We headed out about 0830 from the docks and headed back on by 4pm. The fog cleared shortly before 3pm, and by the time we were headed home, it was coming back in thick. There was still quite a bit of hyacinth and debris from recent storms in the water. But we were able to fish without fighting weeds on our lines hardly at all. All in all for a limited day of movement and visibility, I think our guests had a great time and got to catch some fish and see a part of the local waters they never have before. We are gearing up for a full on live bait party this spring on board as we have secured a reliable source. Check out the calendar and get on board for a day chasing big California Delta Stripers!

Beautiful day on the river with another regular guest aboard. We fished 3 different spots in about 5 hours for 9 Stripers to the boat up to 20 inches. We have had water temps in the low 50's and some areas have more clean water than others. Lots of hyacinth and weeds in some locations and none in others as well. We will be running Striper and Sturgeon trips through the Spring. Join us for live bait Striper fishing as the water temps warm up and the fishing only gets better every week!

Water temps are holding about 54° on both sides of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers we fish on. We started out the morning from Rio Vista and went down to check the west bank. Dropped some jumbo minnows and cut sardines on top of some decent marks on the sonar. We didn't get many takers so we moved down to the San Joaquin side near Antioch. The water coming through 3 mile slough was muddy, but both sides of the river were fairly clean after the large storms we just had the week before. Once we settled into our first spot, the tide was just hitting high tide. We started with some cut sardines and caught a small catfish. Only a short time on anchor and the tide turned and started going out. We dropped live bait and cut sardines and couldn't hardly get the rods in the water before the first few fish took them. After the tide and current picked up speed from the outgoing, there started to be some weeds in the water clogging up our lines. We moved down to our next spot, closer to the Antioch bridge. Again, dropping live bait and cut sardines, and the fish were biting good. 12 fish to the boat, biggest striper was 5.46 pounds and several just short of being legal. We kept 3 fish for our guests that day and safely released the others to grow. The guests of the day were great to fish with and the young ladies on board wanted to catch their first Delta Stripers. We accomplished that and I'm sure they will be talking about this adventure in the days to come.

Water temps at 73° on the surface and Shaker Stripers are everywhere on the rivers. We spent 6 hours fishing multiple spots on both the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers out of the Rio Vista area. We ran all the common baits for this time of year and caught 5 fish. We are still waiting on the salmon to start coming up the Mokolumne River as well. The previous week, we were on the Mokolumne looking for signs of salmon, and we appeared to be the only boat even trying on a Saturday. The fish are still waiting for that cooler water to come down from the lakes when they start lowering them in preparation for winter rains. There will be plenty of fishing these next few weeks as we will be spending time on Don Pedro looking for the landlocked king salmon there until the river salmon show up. Feel free to send me a message if you have any questions about trips. I will always reply as soon as possible. Thank you, Captain Doug Mc

Spent Friday and Saturday on the river this past weekend. We had to cancel Sunday due to the rain coming in that day. We had 2 stripers on Friday and 4 catfish bites. There were only 1 catfish and several bites on Saturday that didn't stick, though. We are marking a lot of fish scattered throughout the rivers and only a handful of bait balls we found. We will continue to search for a good bite because, as they say, they can't catch them from the couch. Water temps this past week on our rivers were between 51-52.5° on the surface. Water is muddy after the rains, though, and it's making the bite tough. If you are interested in getting on board with me for a day, send a message to request a booking, and I will check the conditions . we can confirm if it's a good day to run a trip.

Fishing for Rainbow Trout at New Melones will be picking up even more as the cooler weather comes in. Surface temps at the lake this last week were at 72° on the surface. We should continue to see the lake progress into a turnover, where the surface temp becomes cooler than the lower depths. Once we have the cooler surface temps, we will be able to switch over from downrigging deep to surface and shallow trolling for Rainbow and Brown Trout more often. This is going to be a good year as this lake level is still holding fairly high compared to low water years as of now. We will also start using a casting technique to catch these hungry fish, where we will drift into the coves and toss nightcrawlers with little to no weight on them. This can produce nice healthy fish that can give you the tug while holding your rod. Stay tuned for more updates as the weather cools, but the action heats up on the 4th largest reservoir in California, New Melones.