Time: varied each day
Location: CA Delta
Air temperature: 90’s late afternoon
Cold Sunday am
Water temperature: didn’t look but warm
Tidal influence: Saturday incoming, Sunday outgoing
Seasonal fish pattern: top water only
Wind direction speed: From the West at 30 and gusting to 35-40
Water clarity: stained
A great weekend at UFC 7, with awesome RB Bass Anglers! I think there were 10 or 12 of us, most camping together. Comradery was at an all time high, as we only get to see each other every now and then.
Blast off at 11am Saturday, found us searching for calm frog water, as I had only been on the Delta once in the last month and my partner not at all. It was obvious that we had to fish any West bank on those sloughs running North/South, as those would be in the Lee of that pounding wind.
We stopped in near the far Northwest area of Franks tract looking for an open water bite on some Red leaf lay down, only because the wind wasn’t pounding it. No luck there and we quickly moved on. We fished some here and there in different sloughs, but it was tough hitting your target with that wind. The wind was constantly smacking you at 25-30 and twice a 40 gust almost knocked this old man out of the boat.
We didn’t even get a bite until 12:30 and then it was just a sip, no hit, and I know you all know what that’s like. This happened a few more times before my partner had one actually take it. One in the boat, we need 2 more, and then hopefully cull. We fished many different types of water, and anything that was remotely calm, And noticed throughout the day that the bites that we did get, which were very few, I think 6 total for the day, came off rip rap with tullie’s 5 to 10 yards off. Most came on the outside or just inside the points. My partner picked up another and I picked up one more. At the end of the day, sadly we only had the 3 fish needed. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.
Sunday morning was 4am, coffee was going, and the wind was still Blowing. Getting dressed a knock at the door, RB Bass Brothers Ryan Hall and Chris Perez came into my camper looking tired and frozen. Ryan volunteers that it is Cold out. He’s got on everything he has that is warm. Dang, now I had to dig in the camper and look for warm gear. When I left home it was 103 degrees.
I found that I had put my sweatpants and sweatshirt in the camper, and found another Heavy Sweatshirt, so I’m golden! We blasted at 6 am, and from yesterday’s experience, we looked for the same geographical areas of West bank, rip rap and tullie’s. We burned almost 40 gallons of fuel searching. The cold absolutely Killed the bite for us. We couldn’t find a bite anywhere. Now we are hoping that as the morning warms up so will the fish, but it didn’t. We ended up boating 3 fish, but only one was scorable, before time ran out.
There really wasn’t much we could improve on. Even with the wind we dropped dimes into pockets, we learned to throw and when your frog hit your target, you quickly dipped rod rod top in the water, so the wind wouldn’t pull the frog out of your spot unnaturally. I don’t think I ever scratched my head so much trying to figure it out.
We were in 20th place day one with a little ground to make up. Day 2 we choked, the wind and cold took its toll and we lost 2 spots ending in 22nd spit. All in all, the experience was great, the camping was awesome, with good food, lots to drink to take away the pain of the day, and with my RB Bass brother great company!
The wind was a killer, but I’d do it again tomorrow! Go try it, have fun and take a kid fishing.
RB BASS OUTDOOR ANGLER
Mike Rogers
