Ok, Ok… I’ll Settle for a Couple of Stripers!

Suisun Bay Stripers

November 21-22, 2011 

These aren’t mighty sturgeon. Heck, these aren’t even big as stripers go, but these two cookin’ sized schoolies made my neighbor happy!

It’s now or wait ’til spring, because I generally give up fishing during the cold, grey days of December and January. So… if I was to fill out my sturgeon card of three tags, I had to catch two more keepers in the last two weeks of November!

Actually, I’d tried last week and came home skunked, and didn’t even write a report of the effort. So during this week’s trip, the pressure was building. I bought a new frozen eel for the trip, and launched into a perfectly calm and sunny Sacramento River at Rio Vista.

I cruised down to my honey hole on Suisun Bay, it took a bit over an hour’s time to get there. The river was flat calm the entire trip, and it seemed almost like summertime as I fished in my T-shirt and soaked in the warm sunshine.

It doesn’t get any more pleasant on Suisun Bay in November!

Flat calm weather!

The sunshine lasted only ’til late afternoon when the air took on a decided chill, and I was fishing in long johns and two sweatshirts, one hooded, before dark.

Another gorgeous sundown on Suisun Bay after a wonderful day of fishing – and the fish didn’t much disturb me, either!

I fished a huge outgoing tide that evening, hoping that the current would stir up the sturgeon bite and allow me to use that second tag, but it was not to be. I reeled in just one little striper of about 20 inches, and since it was bleeding from the hook, I kept him to give to my neighbor who loves to eat stripers.

I hit the sack about 2200, and slept well on a calm and quiet bay. By 0530 I was fishing again, and in the fog! It was cold, clammy and very November- like that early morning. But another schoolie striper took my offered eel again, and I had two cooking sized stripers in the box – a striper limit. I continued trying for that elusive sturgeon.

Granted, this isn’t a big fish, but they’re adding a lot of these huge wind turbines along the Sacramento River. This photo shows the immense size of these monsters; compare that worker’s pickup at the base to the height and mass of the huge turbine!

By noon of the second day it finally dawned on me that I wouldn’t be taking home a sturgeon this week. Again. Nevertheless, my trip had been another grand Delta adventure! Perhaps next week, weather permitting, I can get one last trip in this year and fill out that second sturgeon tag…

A very amateurish and kinda long winded video of this trip is available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2dMfpkZQao 

---

---