Summer Smallies

The one thing I can not go with out is several trips to the upper reaches of the Calfornia Delta for Smallmouth. It makes for a long day but its always worth it regardless of how the fishing is. I've done lots of guiding up there for Smallies and know some areas well but today I went to an area that I havn't ever fished. I love the anticipation of fishing new water and since the Delta has some where around 1200 miles of Canals, sloughs,lakes and several major tributary rivers that drain off the west slope of the Sierras, there will always be new water fish. Well, we hope...

I saw only a handfull of boaters today. Its a complete 360 of what you find in the more populated warmer water middle,southern and west Delta, where a Saturday in August, it is packed full of pleasure boaters, jet skis and every other wake making mavhine you can think of. This area is relaxed with a glimpse of what the Delta must have once been.

The fishing was great for numbers all day and we manaded a couple of good ones early and late. Typical for August. We ended up with 40 to 50 Smallmouth for the two of us. Sometimes its numbers and other times quality. They havn't schooled up on bait fish yet and are primarily chewing on crawfish, so they are spread out through out the water column. that makes targeting quality fish an early and late deal for me. We had a mix of Smallies with a couple of largemouth and Spots mixed in..We saw two or three Salmon roll as well which was nice to see this early in the year. A few Stripers are around up there but nothing to get to excited about. Weather was a perfect 77-79. Fall is coming, like it or not.