Striped Bass Fishing with Bobby Barrack

I am addicted to striped bass fishing. My addiction to catching stripers once contributed to the termination of a relationship with a girl, it has cost me hundreds of dollars and has at times, affected my work performance. Why do I do it and why do I like it as much as largemouth bass fishing…because those fish can pull. They are aggressive and their topwater strikes are nothing short of amazing.

My knowledge about catching linesiders is somewhat limited. I mostly learned how to catch stripers by talking briefly with Steve LaRussa at Coyote Bait & Tackle, reading quite a few articles on the web, and getting out as much as possible during the striper season.  At first, I quickly grew frustrated. It felt as though I was ‘blind’ casting my way through the Delta while hunting for these fish. What I really needed was some direction from someone who knew what they were doing. Read more

Coyote Bait & Tackle’s Team Tournament

Coyote Bait & Tackle has always been the leader of organizing some of the largest bass tournaments in the South Bay. This November, they put on a two day shootout at the largest lake we have here in the Santa Clara Valley, Anderson Reservoir. With over $5,000 up for grabs, local anglers brought bags in that would affirm the lake’s reputation as a small bass fishery. Encountering a tough bite, anglers needed to muster up only a hair over four and a half pounds to be included in the 25 boats that would advance to the final day.

It would take a big 8.05 pound kicker that would lock Gary Wratten and Dave Uyeda into first place on the final day with an outstanding bag weighing 16.23 pounds. With the big fish option, winner take all option and first place check, Gary and Dave brought home a total of $3,510!!

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Caifornia Delta Fishing

This article was contributed by Cooch.

Low tide is probably the toughest tide to fish for most guys. The one reason is, we all like to chunk our baits up to the bank and work it to the weedlines, heck that’s where we ALL have the best results, up in that shallow trough. But when that window of opportunity disappears, what do ya do? It’s simple really, ya gotta know when, where and how to adjust to the fish movements and their activities.

Now there are two real key factors that I relay on to make these adjustments, seasonal patterns and barometric changes. Keeping in mind that the bass is a predator and feeds a lot, except in early spring during the spawn when most strike come out of reaction, ya need to understand their level of activity at that specific time of year. Read more

The 50 Year Storm

Have you ever seen the movie “Point Break”? It’s a classic movie about a bunch of surfers who are bank robbers. The Reeves (Keanu) goes undercover to stop these dudes and needs to learn how to live the surfer life to try to catch these guys. In a nut shell, he finally catches the bad guy, a bad ass dude named Bodie (Patrick Swayze) but has to let him go. He caught him where he knew he’d find him, where the 50 year storm would hit. This 50 year storm would produce waves as big as sky scrapers. Every big wave surfer’s dream. Only once every 50 years would this event show it’s face on the planet. While Bodie is looking at the waves, handcuffed and going to prison, in true ripper fashion Read more

Uvas Reservoir

Uvas Reservoir is located in Morgan Hill, CA and is one of the smallest fisheries regulated by the Santa Clara Valley Water District. I’ve fished here quite a bit, and it’s one of the few places you can still fish at night. There is plenty of largemouth bass and catfish and I’ve personally witnessed bait fish swirling in schools near the shore. If you are brave enough to hike the steep banks on the center island you will find a real nice dropoff on the Eastern side of the “Central Island”. Read more

Largemouth Bass – The Ultimate Predator

Since traffic on our local lakes, and subsequently, on this board have come to a crawl in these dog-days of summer, I thought I’d take a moment to discuss some of the peculiar behaviors of our favorite finned species.

Micropterus salmoides, or commonly, the Largemouth Bass, is a large freshwater sunfish native to eastern North America. Due to human introduction, its range has expanded greatly and Largemouth Bass now populate freshwater bodies in temperate regions throughout the world.

Most people think of the Largemouth Bass as an enigma, but really, it’s the most lethal predator that Mother Nature has ever assembled. Read more

Summer Time Basics for Success

Contributed by: Andy “Cooch” Cuccia

Hey y’all, summer time is here and I’m sure hearing a lot from anglers through out the country who are struggling to catch bass. Most complain of not catching many fish, and the ones they do catch are always small. I have a few simple ideas I’d like to share with you that should improve your summertime catch rate, no matter where you fish for bass. As with most of my fishing, I like to keep things as simple as possible, I only rely on a couple of baits and three patterns. These baits have been very effective on bass in both the deeper ranges and shallows, as we move out of the post spawn and into our summer patterns. There are three things I tend to look for when approaching a lake this time of year, especially when the temps git up to and above 100 degrees outside. Read more

Future Pro Tour - The Delta Event

Contributed by: Marce

Last weekend Kevin Campbell and I participated in our very first “official” boat tournament. I don’t know what was more interesting, the fact that we both had never fished in an official fishing tournament or that Kevin had never fished the delta. And now, a week after our epic adventure, I am still on cloud nine. It was by far, hands down, one of the most memorable moments of my entire life. From launching the boat to walking up to accept our award, the entire time was something I will never forget.

To help paint a clearer picture, I felt it would be best if I walked you through the day as I viewed it. This will help show you exactly what happened - almost hour by hour. Grab yourself one of your favorite beverages, this article could be a little long. Read more

Sharing the Wealth

Contributed by: Murf

I’d say I’ve learned 90% of what I know about bass fishing from my dad.  When you consider the vast foundation of knowledge it takes just to be a decent bass angler - setups, proper knots, reading water clarity, temperature, and current, understanding the bass’ life cycle and putting together a game plan to target them - that foundational knowledge makes up the largest chunk of what we all already know about our favorite pastime.  My familiarity with different lure types and information about our local lakes and the Delta came from my Dad, as well.  Growing up, and to this day, bass fishing has been, and is, our thing.  It’s what we spend time together doing, and so there has been plenty of time for that 90% of my current knowledge to be absorbed Read more

How I Fish Senkos at Del Valle

Contributed by: dinkcatcher

I fish the south end for a lot of 2 pound average bass by throwing Senkos(no weight) around the edges of the weedbanks in the morning and then out to little rock pile and patches of gravel, where they spend the mid-day hours. Towards evening I hit up a couple of travel lanes and have a chance for a couple of good ones. If the action is slow in the morning I head to midlake Read more

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