Yep, the delta was packed this weekend. Live bait fisherman, pluggers, trollers…but the fish are here. Scattered, but here. I spoke to a few people and there was some talk of some big 10 plus fish being caught on live blue gill and assorted dead bait. My dad talked to these guys that caught a 16 and and 18 on “live bait”…holy shit that would be fun.

Pops and I decided to fish two days this weekend. Did it all except for trolling. One thing I learned is that I do not know shit about fishing for stripers. Although, I am determined to learn. We did get a chance to try some live blue gill with no takers. Fishing with blue gill is like fishing with swim baits, you know when you get bit that it’ll be a good one, and this year will be the year I get one on a blue gill. Also, this will be the year I break the 10 pound mark on a topwater plug. (I hope)

Too make a long stroy short, caught a shit load of shakers on spoons the first day which was really fun, caught a shit load of shakers on the next day with anchovies (Pops loves bait fishing so this weekend was for him..), then finally caught a 7.2 pounder on a River 2 Sea bottom walker. Jesus christ did I need that. Hearing all these people talk about big fish can get a little discouraging when you are catching dinks all day. It was good to be with Pops though. The dude is fucking funny. Casting out a carolina rigged Fish Trap with an anchovie head used in place of the lead head!! He did catch one though which shut me up. Then I look over and he is using what he called a “schmorgeschborg”, a huge pile of sardines and shad all clumped up on a hook.

Till next weekend…

Well kinda, He go this 60lb ling cod in AK went he came there with me two summers ago. He’s been bugging me to post it. Here it is fucker, in all it’s glory.

What an amazing time. The bite was definitely not like what we have experienced in the past. This fluctuation of cold and warm weather definitely made the bite tough. I was hoping for warm sunny weather. Bikinis and large green bass.

When we arrived, it was defintely not what I expected. Driving through 20, we ran into rain! Our first night camping, it was 34 degrees outside and MAS didn’t bring a sleeping bag!!? Getting back out on that night bite was bad-ass though, even though I didn’t catch one our first night. But I sure caught a buzz. Icy cold buds on the lake at 1:00am can’t be beat(unless it is Coors Light).

We started a new tradition this year. A night tourney with a 3 fish limit. Our boat blew it, we only caught one. But it was a close match, The rat had a 8 lb 9 oz bag for two fish while Delta Matt and Josh came in with three fish weighing 8 lbs 11 oz. They are lucky I didn’t get to the rock wall first!

So here is the report I left on WesternBass.com(which was erased becasue I said go check it out on the bassturdz site!):

Date: 2008-04-26
Location: San Jose
E-Mail: suckit@bassturdz.com
Water Temp: 56-62
Water Clarity: Clear (4-6 feet visibility)
Report: We were there from 4/23-4/27. Tough bite, not too good but the night bite was the most fun. We were most successful on 1/2 oz Jigs, shakey head rigs, and senkos when the wind picked up in the day. Rock piles near spawning areas. No swimbait fish for us this trip, a few bites, but nothing big. Our bag on the boat Max, Friday night, went 8.3, 6.2, a few 4′s and a dink. Another boat we were with that night killed it, over 20 fish (YEAH MATT!). Other nights, dinks and a few 3′s maybe. Go to the keys at night. You’ll catch some. Clear lake is the sh*t, regardless whether the fishing is bad, great to get out there and fish, drink, drive in the dark, throw jigs in the rocks, wait until 1:00 am fro the moon to rise (bite turned on then), then sleep all day. As compared to other lakes around us, along with the crappy weather, the fishing was great. This dude is trippen(refferring to some guy complaining about tournament fishing affecting the bite). GO to the bassturdz website to see the detials, Be sure to grow a moustache, you’ll catch more fish! Oh, and get a cube of Coors light too, budweiser sucks.

Tips: Jig color does not matter at night. Just as long as it’s big and bulky. Move the jigs quick over the rocks. Shakey head when you’re bored and senkos with needle weights wacky rigged. It’s cold again so I would hit the lake when no one is out, AT NIGHT!!

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Yes. It is here. It has been here. Fishing, Fishing, Fishing! Man this shit is the most expensive it has ever been. $4.00 a gallon for gas! Holy shit. Well hopefully, the new BassTurdz signature shoe will help us pay for that shit. Yeah, our own shoe. Sweet. Green and black, just like the sweet ass lunker large mouth bass. We love em so much. Sigh….

News areound the Turd quarters.

New Little dreamer on the Roster. Skeeter, the Rat’s new little homey. An awesomne male Black lab! Welcome to the team little dreamer. May you enjoy all the days on the water. (When your papa fixes his boat)

The Delta has been taking up a lot of my fishing time. I fucking love that place. The first few times we went out. things were a little grim. Although they picked up. I went out with Jerbs and my Dad a few weeks ago. It was one of the windiest days I have ever experienced on the Delta. Of course, you can always find a place out of the wind in the Delta.

We fished some abandoned boats and Jerbs hooks an 8 on a Jig. I forgot how green these fish are. Fighters man. It was good to see the little fucker hook into a nice Delta toad. Pops hasn’t seen a fish that big in a while to. I think it contributed to him picking up the stick again.

All in all, our top 5 fish went somewhere from 23-24 pounds. All on jigs. I popped a 5.25 pounder on the new Gloomis Bronzeback Carolina Riggin’ rod. So sweet with the 1/2 oz jigs. An oh man, was I hungover. I constantly forget how shitty it is to to fish hungover.

Well, I had to head out to the delta again. This time, after a three day binger. Again, fished hungover. I stuck with beer the night before though so the hungover wasn’t that bad.

It had to be 90 degrees. The delta was steaming and there was hardly any wind. It was a wonderful reminder of how awesome this summer is going to be.

It was only me and pops on the Crestliner (trout troller to Jerbs, kook!!). Pops hasn’t got a good fish in a while(anything over a pound)..Like over a year. He was saying, I need a good fish. I knewhe was boundfor something over a pound this trip. Sure enough, lands a 4.5 pounger on a jig using his 40 year old spinning rod. NICE DAD! He’s hooked again. We had told Jerbs earlier (he came out with Straps) that we should have a big fish tourney. They were down so we were looking good so far.

Then, I hooked a 5.4 off a tullie point using a senko. It’s so bad ass hooking a largemouth in the tullies using braid on a flipping stick. I fucking love the delta.

Well Jerbs & Straps, thanks for the 10 bucks.

8 days and counting until clear lake. The mustache is on it’s 15th day. Looking scummier than ever.

Amazing. Burritos. Bass. Beer. Doesn’t get much better than that. problem is, they didn’t have hot dogs for bait. I was bummed on that. So I had to make due. I found the next best thing. CHORIZO! Yep, fresh authentic chorizo. It doesn’t stay on a hook too well though so u have to freeze it and keep it on ice in order for it to stay on the hook. Anyways, gila monsters are a hit out there too. Hook those things in the tail and they freak out on top of the water 2 hours straight! The lunks love em. Anyways, here’s the biggest of the trip, a solid 10.5!

MIJO! TU PESCADO ES MUY GRANDE! FELIZ LUNKERANDO!

Miklo with a 9.5 pounder caught in MASWOOD LAGOON!!

DAMN! I Should have never showed Jerbs the creek by my house!! This spot is amazing man. TOADS. He used the good ol’ hot dog and mustard rig to hook this 10.8 pound toad. I unbuttoned a monster too, I think it was because i was using generic brand mustard. Make sure you use Heinz mustard, and they like a lil sauerkraut on it too. Jerbs’ TWO DD’s in TWO DAYS!!

Well I was so hyped on starting the year right, I decided to hit the local creek. I heard of these hot dogs that are just to die for called Caspers. Well i microwaved a few dogs up and got the 4/0 gammies ready. I grabbed the 4 lb test and my swimbait rod and was on my way. The weather was great and the Cody was rearing to go.

Water temp was cold. Clarity was brown and I was hoping the dirty diapers in the creek wouldn’t affect the bite. I lobbed out the tasty Caspers and pointed to the sky and said,”Fishing homey Gods, please let 2008 be a good year. I promise, if you make it good for me today, I’ll stop drinking as much as I usually do…” As soon as I was done saying the last word my 4 lb test jumped. I set the hook on my 8’12″ swimbait rod and the fight was on! She went left, went right, jumped in the air, and digged. It was awesome.

She was 9lbs 4ounces. FIRST FISH OF 2008!!

Fucking Jerbs has a boat! A nice boat too. I’m so stoked man because he only lives down the street! Better keep that seat open for me fucker! Well, Jerbs has been hittin the Delta lately and has been catching a lot of stripers. I haven’t had the urge to go at all this year until Jerbs and I went out all hungover on last Sunday. That day I hooked into a good one and it came unbuttoned. I had to retie so I let Jerbs get the front, BAM, he hooks into a toad. Well a toad to us. She weighed 10lbs 5 oz! Just like that, I’M HOOKED AGAIN! STRIPERS BABY!!

All fucking week I was aching to get back out there. I asked my Dad if he wanted to go but he was scared of the rain. So it was to be Sam, Jerbs, and myself. Well, we added Straps when we heard Jerbs got a new boat. I think Straps even canceled some class to learn about solar energy to make the maiden voyage. That’s a fucking Turd. I was so excited Friday night, I couldn’t sleep and I was only going off of 4 hours of sleep from the night before(caught a land lunker). So i maybe got a total of 8 hours in two days.

We left San Jose at 5:00 am and we were on our way to launch Jerbs’ new boat. Man I was freaking out the whole time. The excitement was fucking great. Especially because Jerbs went out the day before and the whole boat caught over 50 stripers!

After getting Jerbs’ boat, we headed to Rio Vista. I’ve never launched that far north in the Delta . My Dad used to fish there all of the time back in the day. Once, he was with a guy who once caught a 47 pounder off the shore using sardines. I can’t tell you exactly where we went. Jerbs asked me not to, but lets just say it’s north. There were some bait fisherman there an occasionally, someone would stop by, do a few casts and leave. We stayed in a quarter mile radius for almost the whole day.

Right away, we began catching fish. Well Sam was the first to catch one. He’s stoked on this species. Straps then followed with his first stiper. I was chucking an AC plug hoping for a big fish, but I didn’t get any takers. I was told from one of the guys at Fisherman’s Warehouse that it was a good surface plug for big fish. It looks great on top of the water. By the way. This dude Mike at the Fisherman’s Warehouse hooked up reel tune-ups on all my reels! Thanks man.

It was on! Rippin on rip baits, slow rolling swimbaits, and yo-yo-ing Rat-l-Traps(which I think i’ll up in size next time). I noticed that most of our larger fish were landed in the early morning and the size became smaller throughout the day. We were basically casting in all directions and everyone was catching fish. Our average size fish was maybe 1-3 pounds. Between the four of us, there were over 100 fish boated! There was a time when I caught 6 stripers on 6 casts with a pearl colored fish trap. Amazing fish, real strong and fiesty. I decided to keep a few keepers and feed the roomates.

I’d have to say that my favorite bait of the day was a 5 ” River 2 Sea bottom walker in hitch color. The pearl fish traps were getting me fish, but when I switched to the bigger swimbait, I was getting bigger fish. The little ones still hit it, and I think because they couldn’t swallow it, a bigger fish would chomp it. That bait also lasted the longest. Too bad I only had one. Fish traps get beat up and as a tip, use Super Glue with your fish traps, they’ll last longer. Put the super glue right where the bait hits the lead head. You’ll get 10 times more durability.

My arms were hurting! My thumb was getting all beat up and I think the longest we went without getting a fish might have been 20 minutes from 7:00am to 3:00pm.

The rain started to come in and we were beat, we were also running out of tackle too. So we decided to head back early. Now this is not like me. I usually can last all day long but I was tired. I had my fill and home was starting to sound nice. plus my arm was dying, I was real TIRED! When is the last time that happened, TIRED FORM CATCHING TOO MANY FISH! Amazing.

We were soaked. Jerbs had made fun of me because I brought snowboard pants, once it started raining, I began laughing at him because he was wet and I wasn’t. We were driving home, talking about how awesome the day was when we looked out off the Antioch bridge. I could see the spot where Jerbs caught his ten pounder the previous week, now a fish that size would be nice….well we saw traffic ahead and I said let’s launch in ANtioch. “I’m down!”, came out of the mouths of the Turdz in the car. Fucking awesome, true fisherman. Beat, wet, tired, and still down to launch again! It was a good decision.

Sam hadn’t caught a keeper all day and was hoping that he could get one on our second spot. Sure enough, Sam caught his keeper. Then Josh hooks into a toad! It took him for little ride before it snapped him off! Then Jerbs catches a nice 5 pounder. I was pissed because I missed a hit and that fish could have been a biggie. Well, when all was looking grim, I get slammed on my fish trap. This fight was what I was waiting for all day, peeling line, diggin my rod in the water, Aww man, I love stripers. It weighed 6.5 lbs and enough to make me want to call in sick to work tomorrow so I can get another one. Perfect ending to wonderful day…but my day wasn’t over.

When we pulled the boat out of the water, it was dark, I was still only going off of 8 hours of sleep for two days and I was beat. In my head I knew I had 8 hungry roommates waiting for me to come home with food. I had to clean the fish, wait to eat and hope I wasn’t going to pass out standing up. G-Juan hooked up his Guam stlye cooking. Coors and fish tacos was on the menu. Luckily I brought home the amount of fish I did. I fed everyone until they were all stuffed without wasting anthing. After stuffing myself with fresh, straight out of the water, striper and some Coors, I decided to hit the bar. A night at the Cinebar with the homies was ahead. Redbulls & Vodkas perked me right up and I was later playing in the puddles from the rain…I woke up on my floor this morning wondering how in the fuck I got there. Yesterday was hands down, one of my favotire fishing trips ever!

GOOD JOB TURDZ!

I start this entry with this photo becasue this is all I did up at the Open. Well Sam and Straps did the same while MAS and Jerbs were full tournament competetors. We were there only to cheer them on…..and to drink lots of beer.

Landed in the Beacon Harbor campsite on Friday night…Came to find that Mario and Jerbs got the only site that had no trees around it. Not a one. That’s cool, a site is better than no site. We started the piling out right away. We heard some music pumping from a bar nearby, THE RUSTY PORTHOLE. That place sucked us dry. It was fun though. Straps was ruling, and so was our guest, Sam. Sam is a guy I work with, I’ve known him for years, and he’s down for fishing. Not a bad start to his first trip to the delta.

The first night ended in a haze. We partied at some locals house, taught a kid how to renegade a beer and he was a natural. I kind of remember walking home…I think we were singing the blue bird on my shoulder song by RBL Posse and doing the C-walk all the way home.

I woke up to the sun toasting me dry the next day. No trees and 80 degrees by 9:00am. SO i found some shade near Mario’s car and crashed till about 12:00. We were up just in time for the weigh in. It was looking a little grim for the boys. Oh well. The big bag was pretty nice and the big fish was around 6 pounds I think. We spent the rest of the day at the Sugar Barge and drank. Looked at boobies and drank. Drove the boat around and drank. Fished for a tiny bit, Sam got his first delta fish. Then we decided to go back and rest , wait for the evening bite.

Mario and Jerbs were going to hang out, so we went back out on the boat. Once again, our trolling motor failed us. It’s too weak for the Delta wind and current. So i’ll be blasting it on 5(full power) and it doesn’t move at all, just keeps us in one spot. Pretty lame becasue I could tell the bite was turning on.
So we cruised behind some tullie to hide from the wind and the typical Delta Pattern was working. Fished the openenings into Frank Tract on the north end. The fish were there. A much needed 4.5 pounder hit my jig. I haven’t caught a nice fish in a long ass time. It’s been way too long. It was a weird looking four pounder though. A real big head and mouth but a small body. If it would have been full, I’d say maybe 6 pounds. Perhapsit was a male…but hell if i know….I forgot how strong these fish are.

Well it was a great ending to a very hungover day. But the nIght wasn’t over. We were thinking about maybe keeping it mellow. But the Rusty porthole was so close:). We had to go over there. Well, The Rusty Porthole it was. Lots of brews, shots of Jack and locals. They were pretty amazing. Suprisingly hospitible and ready to party. I barely remeber the night but I know it was fun. I have a lot of photos but, they won’t fit on here because this blogger sucks and will over lap shit. Maybe I can just post the one below so you’ll get a grasp about what was going on. Basically ended up at some locals house and he showed us his guns and sword collection. Drank beer and checked out his girlfriends mom. I love the Delta.

So the next day, we woke up for the weigh in and the dudes weren’t doing to good. Mario and Jerbs didn’t do too well. The weigh was tight though. Some big fish were brought in. I think two 8 pounders and a a couple of 7′s. It was good to see the boys keeping the competition alive. Good job Jerbs and MAS! I’ve heard you guys are still ripping a lot of lips.

If you want to look at the rest of the photos, you can check them out at my other site and click here

Well we headed home early and it was a great weekend at the Delta. SOme of us fished and others fished and drank. Very Turd like.