Spring sturgeon fishing at peak on the Lower Delta, Suisun Bay

Spring sturgeon fishing has hit its prime on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and Suisun Bay. The water is muddy, the color of chocolate milk, but the influx of water from the atmospheric rivers only appears to improve the sturgeon bite.

“This fishing is at its peak now,” reported Capt. Zack Medinas of Gatecrasher Fishing Adventures. “The sturgeon action is not bad, although I’ve seen better fishing in past years. However, there is a lot of debris, floating logs and dead vegetation, including hydrilla, that washes into the river from the storm flows, so you need to be careful.”

Medinas has been hooking white sturgeon on every trip. On a trip on March 23, he hosted two research biologists from the San Francisco Estuary Institute Clean Water Program that were doing selenium testing of the sturgeon. “These fish are a good indicator species because they spend the majority of their lives in the rivers, Bay and Delta,” he revealed.

“We caught and released two slot-length fish and two oversized fish. One of the slot fish had a PIT tag,” he noted. “The two biologists fished with me in Grizzly Bay at 8 feet deep on the last of outgoing and first of the incoming tide. We used eel and salmon roe to hook the fish.”

On two previous trips, anglers caught and released good numbers of sturgeon.

The first trip produced 4 slot fish and two oversized fish. The 5 anglers aboard the boat hooked the fish on lamprey eel on the incoming tide in Suisun Cut 32 feet on the incoming tide. The following trip yielded 4 fish, including one oversized sturgeon and 3 undersized fish, for 6 anglers in the same area.

Medina and his co-captain, Virginia Salvador, will continue to fish for sturgeon through the end of April and then start potluck fishing for halibut and striped bass as soon as live bait becomes available out of Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco in May.

Salmon fishing will be closed in the ocean this season because of low returns of fall-run Chinooks to the Sacramento and Klamath River basins last year, but Medinas will be doing rockcod trips starting in July. Information: (925) 497-7171.

San Francisco Bay Halibut: Halibut fishing this year started with a bang in March, but the fishing has slowed down as the inflows from the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers and Bay area rivers and creeks have muddied up the water.

On his best trip on March 18, the 7 anglers fishing with Captain Mike Resinco aboard the Lovely Martha in San Francisco landed full limits, 21 halibut, on a half day trip to South San Francisco Bay. The top fish weighed 16 pounds, while the fish averaged 7 to 8 pounds.

“On the next day, we went back to the spot we caught limits the day before, but the conditions changed dramatically,” stated Rescino. “With only 1 bass for the first part of the day we switched locations and found biting fish. We finished up with 21 halibut and 1 striped bass for our 10 anglers!.”

Then on Monday, March 20, the 9 anglers fishing with him caught 9 halibut up to 15 pounds.

“On all of our halibut trips, we’ve trolled with herring and anchovies by Oyster Point in South San Francisco Bay,” added Rescino. “The action has slowed with muddy conditions over the entire bay.”

Rescino said he will be booking halibut trips and bass trips throughout the season and will also be available for rockfish trips starting in mid-July. Information: 650-619-6629.

Lake Amador Trophy Trout: If you want to catch a huge trout, Amador continues to be a great option in the Mother Lode.

Big fish honors go to Song Vang of Stockton, who landed a 10.26 lb. Cutbow from the corner of the dam on a flicker shad on March 24.

Yekam El Nakar also landed a limit of trout weighing a total of 20 pounds. He hooked the trout on crappie jigs near the Dam.

Eriverto Plancarte from San Jose nailed 2 Amador Golds weighing 12.36 and 11 lbs. in Jackson Creek while using mini jigs.

“The weather finally let up and it looks like some decent weather is coming, so we decided to release a bunch of trout, 1400 lbs. total,” said Lee Lockhart at the Lake Amador Resort on March 23. “The second release of the day was 400 lbs. of trophy Cutbows and Golds in the 10-16 lb. range.”

“Lots of fish are being caught on lures (especially crappie jigs) but PowerBait and nightcrawlers are still a good choice if bait fishing. Trollers are doing well but are running lures which work better at slower speeds,” he advised.

The lake is full and the surface water temperature is 54.8 degrees. The water clarity is 3 feet. Information: (209) 274-4739.

This article originally appeared on The Record: Spring sturgeon fishing at peak on the Lower Delta