A report from SteveT for mikescatchreport.com
I went fly fishing for striped bass in The Delta with a friend but it was a very, very, slow day. We were suppose to on the water at something like 6:30am but we ended getting out there at about 11am.
I was using my new Sage TCX 890 rod and my old Sage 3400D reel with a T-14 shooting head. Did I mention it was slow? We caught 10 fish between us and in most of the place we tried we didn't even get a grab. Almost all the fish were dinks and only one fish was above 18-inches. But it was a big one. The striper weighed 14-pounds and measured 33-inches. By West Coast standard it's a whooper. By East Coast standards it's a midget. But it was my personal best on The Delta. I think I got that fish at about noon or 1 pm. So much for the "early bird gets the worm" proverb. Might has well just sleep in.
I came home and told my wife I caught a 33-inch striper today. The first thing she said was "Wow. That's big. Almost as big at the 37-inch striper I caught on the East Coast." Dang it, that was cold. I can't believe she remembered that.
It only took me 10 years and countless of hours and $$$ to catch it and it swarm away to be caught another day. That made me feel good.
East Coast striped bass were introduced into California waters in 1879, when 132 juvenile fish were transported by train from the Navesink River in New Jersey to the West Coast and released near Martinez. Within a year people were catching striped bass around Sausalito, Alameda, and Monterey. The Fish and Game Commission was concerned that the low number of introduced striped bass might fail to establish itself so 300 more stripers were introduced in lower Suisun Bay in 1882. By the mid-1890's the commercial net catch was averaging over a million pounds a year. However in 1935 all commercial fishing for striped bass was stopped to improve sport fishing.