Fresh Rio Vista Fishing Reports

Water temps at 73° on the surface and Shaker Stripers are everywhere on the rivers. We spent 6 hours fishing multiple spots on both the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers out of the Rio Vista area. We ran all the common baits for this time of year and caught 5 fish. We are still waiting on the salmon to start coming up the Mokolumne River as well. The previous week, we were on the Mokolumne looking for signs of salmon, and we appeared to be the only boat even trying on a Saturday. The fish are still waiting for that cooler water to come down from the lakes when they start lowering them in preparation for winter rains. There will be plenty of fishing these next few weeks as we will be spending time on Don Pedro looking for the landlocked king salmon there until the river salmon show up. Feel free to send me a message if you have any questions about trips. I will always reply as soon as possible. Thank you, Captain Doug Mc

This week the fishing on San Francisco bay was fantastic. Plenty of opportunities for our customers to hook and land Striped Bass and Halibut. Everyone went home with a lot of delicious meat!

So far this january the Sturgeon bite has been consistent. Anglers are experiencing great action landing quality fish on every trip. The colder water temperatures have made the Striper bite a little slower but some nice Stripers are being landed on occassion.

Spent Friday and Saturday on the river this past weekend. We had to cancel Sunday due to the rain coming in that day. We had 2 stripers on Friday and 4 catfish bites. There were only 1 catfish and several bites on Saturday that didn't stick, though. We are marking a lot of fish scattered throughout the rivers and only a handful of bait balls we found. We will continue to search for a good bite because, as they say, they can't catch them from the couch. Water temps this past week on our rivers were between 51-52.5° on the surface. Water is muddy after the rains, though, and it's making the bite tough. If you are interested in getting on board with me for a day, send a message to request a booking, and I will check the conditions . we can confirm if it's a good day to run a trip.

The fall sturgeon season is off to a great start. We celebrated a 13th birthday party on the boat and these teenagers did great. Everyone caught their new “biggest fish ever!!!” They even got to experience double hook ups on these monster fish. This is a birthday party we will never forget.

Fishing for Rainbow Trout at New Melones will be picking up even more as the cooler weather comes in. Surface temps at the lake this last week were at 72° on the surface. We should continue to see the lake progress into a turnover, where the surface temp becomes cooler than the lower depths. Once we have the cooler surface temps, we will be able to switch over from downrigging deep to surface and shallow trolling for Rainbow and Brown Trout more often. This is going to be a good year as this lake level is still holding fairly high compared to low water years as of now. We will also start using a casting technique to catch these hungry fish, where we will drift into the coves and toss nightcrawlers with little to no weight on them. This can produce nice healthy fish that can give you the tug while holding your rod. Stay tuned for more updates as the weather cools, but the action heats up on the 4th largest reservoir in California, New Melones.