Sight-Fishing, Frogs, Flipping Ruled At Delta

By Todd Ceisner
BassFan Editor

The Sacramento River, err California Delta, Elite Series was all about making the right decisions and having an understanding of how the tides impacted certain areas of the Delta.

Being in the right area when the fish got active also helped.

Some competitors found the fish in some areas bit better on a low tide while others caught fish on high tide, when the fish seemed to be more active with more water on their backs. Winner Justin Lucas chased a low tide all event and mixed in some sight-fishing, as did others in the Top 5.

Big bedding fish were available throughout the Delta all week, but most of the easy ones took a boat ride to Sacramento early in the tournament. The weights dropped off on the weekend as the sight-fishing bite started to fade and fishing pressure from other tournaments started to have an impact.

Here’s a rundown of how the rest of the Top 5 filled their livewells in California.

2nd: Aaron Martens

> Day 1: 5, 24-11
> Day 2: 5, 26-09
> Day 3: 5, 12-10
> Day 4: 5, 16-09
> Total = 20, 80-07

As the tournament wore on, Aaron Martens says it got tougher and tougher to find the better quality fish on beds that were in a mood to bite. Most of them had been picked off over the first couple days, including several by himself, and he suspects there weren’t many more new fish coming in to spawn.

“I think there were areas that were better (than where I fished),” he said. “I’m sure there was an acre-sized place somewhere on the Delta that was just loaded, but I didn’t have the guts to go look for it. We had a 5-hour day and when you start working on those fish, you run out of time pretty quick. If we’d had an 8-hour day, I might’ve.”

He caught more than 50 pounds over the first 2 days as he took over the lead entering the weekend, but he let a couple of such fish occupy a lot of his time on day 3 and it likely cost him a shot at the win. He wound up weighing in a pair of 1-pounders on Saturday.

“I called them ‘time bandits,’” he said. “They’d come up and look at you and show some aggression and go back, so you’d stick around. Then they’d come up again and look at you and go back to the nest. They were taking all of my time. Everybody was going through same thing.”

He started the event around Mildred Island where he’d pinpointed several 5- and 6-pounders on beds.

“There were five other boats in there and a lot of the easy fish got caught right away,” he said. “I tried to fish for some of the harder ones, but they were harder to see. I left because I knew everything else was going to be hard to catch and probably not worth it. I ran south and caught a few 4-pounders.”

He then moved into White Slough up north and opted to stick around the north Delta the rest of the event.

“The Delta is so big that it has areas where the fish are more behind than others,” he said. “Once I figured out they were toward the end of the spawn I started to look for areas where newer fish may have moved up.

“I was on the fish to win. It was exciting and fun,” he added. “I think I fished a good tournament. I’m happy for Justin. I like him a lot.”

> Sight Fishing gear: 7’3” medium-heavy Enigma Fishing casting rod, Shimano Metanium casting reel (8.5:1 gear ratio), 20-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper fluorocarbon line, unnamed bobber stop, 1/4-oz. unnamed tungsten worm weight, 4/0 Gamakatsu heavy cover flipping hook, unnamed punch skirt (various colors), Strike King Rage Craw (green-pumpkin).

> Dropshot gear: 6’11” medium-heavy Enigma Fishing spinning rod, Shimano Stella spinning reel, 12-pound Sunline SX-1 braided line (main), 10-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper fluorocarbon line (leader), 1/0 Gamakatsu Finesse Heavy Cover hook, 4.5” Roboworm Fat Straight Tail Worm (Aaron’s Magic).

> Main factor in his success – "Paying attention to the details.”

> Performance edge – “My new rods worked really well for the way I was fishing.”

3rd: Dean Rojas

> Day 1: 5, 16-12
> Day 2: 5, 21-10
> Day 3: 5, 21-01
> Day 4: 5, 18-11
> Total = 20, 78-02

Dean Rojas likened the lengthy boat rides to the Delta to fishing the 2011 Bassmaster Classic when many in the field made the run to Venice, La., from New Orleans.

“I’m tired of driving a boat right now,” he quipped on stage on the final day.

What he’s not growing weary of is the string of strong finishes he’s putting together. Counting this year’s Classic and last year’s Angler of the Year Championship, Rojas has six straight Top-20 finishes, including three Top-8s. This year, he’s averaged an 11th-place finish through three events and that has him in the lead for AOY heading into Lake Havasu, his home waters, this week.

“I needed that big bag in the 25-pound range,” he said of his Sacramento River effort. “That would’ve done it for me. This is my highest finish ever here. I’m not considered a local by any means as I grew up fishing southern California and the desert lakes.”

He was happy with his decisions throughout the event, especially his call toward the end of day 1 to duck into a canal off the San Joaquin River. He’d started the day in a crowded area around Mildred Island and Frank’s Tract and didn’t see how the fish there would hold up for the duration.

“There was so much traffic and I knew there was no way to make it last for 3 or 4 days,” he said. “I left there with 7 pounds and said to myself, ‘I can’t do this.’ I had to find an area that was away from everyone else.”

The canal off the San Joaquin turned out to be that spot.

“It was open on both ends so it had water flowing through it and it’s just a place where they can go to spawn. It’s off the main river channel and it had nice grass and mats and reeds and tules. It had all the right ingredients.

“Making the decsion to go into that area was more of a last-ditch effort. I was ready to concede. I had 20 minutes before I had to run back. I’d just gotten fuel. I was there 5 minutes and made a flip and cautht a 6 1/2-pounder and then caught one every 5 minutes after that. I couldn’t get the bait back in the water fast enough.”

On the remaining days, he threw a frog as a search bait, then pitched and flipped soft-plastics when he had to slow down.

“I covered a lot of water,” he said. “I saw some bedding fish, but I didn’t think concentrating on that would pay off. Ish (Monroe) is a good friend of mine and he insists you can’t win sight-fishing here for 4 days. I figured if I can catch them better just fishing, I’d do that. It’s not like you can go out sight-fishing on other lakes where the water stays the same.

“In the area I was in, the water was dirty. I’d get certain bites where I was certain they were on a bed. I wasn’t visually fishing for them, I was just fishing.”

> Frog gear: 7’ medium-heavy Duckett Fishing Terex casting rod, Duckett Fishing 360R casting reel (7:1 gear ratio), 80-pound Sunline FX-2 braided line, SPRO Bronzeye 65 frog (clear chartreuse).

> Pitching gear: 7’4” heavy action Duckett Fishing Terex casting rod, same reel, 60-pound Sunline FX-2 braided line, 3/4-oz. unnamed tungsten worm weight, Paycheck Baits punch skirt (brown/blue/black), 4/0 Gamakatsu EWG worm hook, 5” Big Bite Baits Fightin' Frog (tilapia and green-pumpkin).

> Main factor in his success – "Making the decision to move into that canal on day 1. That saved my tournament.”

> Performance edge – "Everything performed flawlessly. I had no issues at all with my equipment. It allowed me to do my job. It says a lot that I’ve been with these companies for so long. It’s because their products are the best of the best.”

4th: Ish Monroe

> Day 1: 5, 22-02
> Day 2: 5, 23-02
> Day 3: 5, 14-00
> Day 4: 5, 13-05
> Total = 20, 72-09

The Delta is home for Ish Monroe and he certainly fished like he was in a comfort zone all week. It was an easy transition for him coming off the Beaver Lake FLW Tour the week before.

“I fished an area I don’t normally fish in tournaments only because it gets a lot of pressure,” he said. “During practice, I saw it was my best opportunity to win and I chose to fish around that area.

“It’s just one big community hole and I guess I figured out something different than most. There were not a lot of Elite Series guys in there, which was surprising as well.”

He had the best of all worlds with pre- and post-spawn fish as well as those locked on beds.

“The one part about this area is I knew I could have it all,” he said. “I had them coming, leaving and spawning.”

His comfort fishing the tide cycles was also a key element to his success. He opted to throw a frog on high tide and flipped and looked at bedders on low tide.

“It was a huge key,” he added. “It only happens every once in a while where the frog fish bite better on high tide than on low tide and the flipping fish bite better on a low tide than high tide. The sight-fish are always sight-fish – you just have to catch them in the right mood.”

The main ingredient to the area he fished was a rich variety of vegetation.

“I drove the whole Delta looking for good structure, which was grass,” he said. “Good grass means bass will be there. My area had great grass. It had holes in the grass, matted grass, submerged grass, every type of vegetation on the Delta.”

He said hyacinth and pennywort were prevalent there.

“Those were key factors,” he added. “When I pull into an area and there’s all types of grass, that means I get to fish the way I like to.”

> Frog gear: 7’4” extra-heavy Daiwa Steez SVF-XBD frog rod, Daiwa Zillion casting reel (7.3:1 gear ratio), 65-pound Maxima braided line, Snag Proof Ish’s Phat Frog (da man).

> Flipping gear: 8’ heavy-action Daiwa Steez SVF Compile-X flipping rod, same reel, same line, 1.5-oz. River 2 Sea Trash Bomb tungsten weight (black), 5/0 River 2 Sea New Jack flipping hook, Missile Baits D-Bomb (candy grass).

> Sight-fishing gear: Same as flipping rod, Daiwa Steez casting reel (7.9:1 gear ratio), 25-pound Maxima fluorocarbon line, 1/2-oz. River 2 Sea tungsten worm weight, same hook, Missile Baits D Stroyer (watermelon red flake).

> During the course of the tournament, Monroe was flipping to fish that were holed up behind docks and he was able to get a couple in the boat on the 25-pound fluorocarbon. “I call it dock-flipping,” he said. “I caught an 8-pounder that way and literally bounced it over the dock and into my boat.”

> Main factor in his success – "Experience on the Delta and knowledge of what to look for and knowledge of the tides.”

> Performance edge – "My Yamaha engine performed flawlessly. I logged nearly 1,000 miles during the week – 150 each day during the event and another 400 in practice. I covered every inch of the Delta and my boat and motor held up great.”

5th: Chris Zaldain

> Day 1: 5, 30-07
> Day 2: 5, 20-07
> Day 3: 5, 9-14
> Day 4: 5, 10-15
> Total = 20, 71-11

Day 1 of the event belonged to Chris Zaldain, who weighed in the biggest fish caught in a B.A.S.S. event in several years – a 12-pounder that anchored his 30-pound stringer.

He later said that bag served as a "get out of jail free" card as his weights dropped off significantly the rest of the way. He was solely hunting for big fish and employed sight-fishing as his main tactic.

“If you weren’t blind-casting or sight-fishing you weren’t going to win,” he said. “I had an unbelievable practice. During practice, that was the first two or three days of the nice weather and the fish were starting to move up. They’d bite moving baits and you could also catch them punching and flipping, but all that pre-spawn stuff turned to spawning stuff.”

He focused mainly on the north Delta while trying to avoid the moss bloom that hampered bait presentations in some areas.

“They spawn last in the north Delta and I felt like California had had a mild winter and there’d been a sporadic spawn the last 4 to 6 weeks so I went to where I felt the spawn was going to be stronger,” he said. “I put myself in big-fish areas. I’ve fished here for 15 years and know where the big ones live. My baits and presentations were all geared to big fish.

“That’s how you win on the Delta. You can’t lay up and pick up a spinnerbait and expect to win.”

> Dropshot/sight-fishing gear: 7’5” medium-action Megabass Orochi XX Extreme Mission casting rod, Shimano Core casting reel, 12-pound Seaguar Tatsu fluorocarbon line, 3/0 Roboworm Rebarb hook, 6” Roboworm (Aaron's magic), 1/4-oz. unnamed tungsten dropshot weight.

> The 12-pound Tatsu was the same line he caught his 12-pounder on day 1 with. “It’s super soft and limp,” he said.

> He also flipped a Texas-rigged 4” Megabass Bottle Shrimp (uchida craw) and weighed a couple fish caught on a homemade wakebait.

> The Megabass I-Slide 185 was a productive bait as well, especially around bluegill beds on day 2, Zaldain said.

> Main factor in his success – "My experience on the Delta and confidence in knowing where the bigger fish would be.”

> Performance edge – "I have to give a big thanks to Dean Yoshizumi, the owner of Hi’s Tackle Box. He let me stay at his house all week and any Megabass baits I’d run out of, I’d let him know and he’d bring them back from the store. That was a big help and he kept me calm and comfortable rather than doing the pizza box dinner in a hotel room.”