THE WEEKLY SHORELINER'S REPORT

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 Summary:  If you want good luck, get up early and work the last half of the incoming tide.  That's where the water movement is and--surprise, surprise--most of the fish.  Get out the drums and start chanting for rain.
 
 

STRIPED BASS:  Boaters have been doing superbly this past week but shoreliners only okay.  It's unfair but that's how it is.  Best bets this side of the Bay are Golden Gate Fields (as far away from the alcoholics as possible), using bloodworms, or Hair Raisers or Kastmasters, or Point Pinole with anchovies, or Eckley Pier with bullheads.  On the other side, plugging reigns supreme, with Rat-L-Traps and Hair Raisers being the top lures,  from San Quentin Point through Loch Lomond and China Camp, and then over to Vallejo at the Maritime Academy on bullheads.  And there are a good many schools passing through the Gate right now.
 

STURGEON:  Rain is needed, and lots of it.  As soon as that happens, combined with minus tides, we'll see some better possibilities from shore.   There are diamondbacks collected about Suisun Bay from the Mothball Fleet up through Montezuma Slough, and also from Pittsburg up to Antioch.  Eager anglers might keep working Eckley Pier, Vallejo (on the Napa River north of Highway 37), or Montezuma Slough from Grizzly Island road off of Fairfield.
 

PERCH: The rocky shoreline in the Bay is good for black and pile perch on pile worms and grass shrimp.   So is Berkeley Pier, right next to the pilings.  Fort Baker has striped perch, pile perch, black perch, and lots of white perch.  Sausalito is also a good spot.  On the surf, the best action is north of Fort Cronkite, up through Slide Ranch.
 

MISCELLANEOUS SPECIES:  Some leopard sharks and halibut remain, though not many in keepable sizes.  Rockfish are slow inside the Golden Gate but much better from Fort Cronkite up to Point Reyes.  Pile worms, anchovies, sculpins--all are good baits.   Salmon are possible between Rio Vista and Steamboat Slough on spinners, but it's a long shot.
 

FRESHWATER: Trout planted at Lafayette, Shadow Cliffs, Del Valle, and Chabot.  Cooler weather in recent days has helped the fishing but not to get excited about.  Use baits and go deep for all species.
 

DELTA RUMORS:  Still a lot of small stripers to wade through on the way to the keepers.  Best bets in North Delta are the San Joaquin River/Three Mile Slough junction, upriver between Rio Vista  and Steamboat Slough, and various sudden "hot spots" from Antioch to Sherman Island.  It comes and goes.  Most of the Delta people still say the Fall Run there is weeks off.  In South Delta, Mildred Island is getting big stripers on Rat-L-Traps by black bass anglers, so look for some action in the Whiskey Slough, Empire Cut and Bacon Island corridor.  Catfishing there is still pretty good on typical baits.  There are also a good many undersized sturgeon in the north, getting to the bait first, so it's been a royal pain lately.  Cooler days and rain will be a major plus.