Father's Day Striper Fishing

On father’s day I drove out to Williams to meet with Ol’ pops and instead of hitting boss pond we hit the sacramento river. Ol’ Pops is a striper fanatic and since we haven’t been out to fish for striper a whole lot this year, I figured we could do that for father’s day.  Lately I have been focusing more on bass and panfish so I also figured this might be a nice change of pace. 

Sac River Bank fishing has been changing quite a bit for us. As of last year they closed our favorite fishing hole because it was near a weir and all weir areas are now closed to fishing. We have yet to find another fishing spot on the sac. 

As you go up river there are three spots. Spot #1 is a beachy area but the problem is that a lot of swimmers and tubers like to hang around there. Plus it doesn’t fish very well so I’m not a fan. Spot #2 has a big pump through the middle of it and I had never really caught anything so we skipped it and went directly to what I will call “Old Spot.” 

Old spot is a spot where we used to go back in the day when I was a kid. My dad still swears by that spot because he used to limit out all the time when he went there in the past. We drove up to old spot and we were surprised by a no trespassing sign. So that makes two of our spots in Colusa that have been closed. Bank fishing in Colusa is getting much tougher. 

We finally decided on spot #2. I had nightcrawlers set up hoping for some big catfish so I tossed in that line while I put new line on my striper rod. I tossed my line in and within minutes I had my first fish on, only it wasn’t a catfish it was a small striper.  I was pretty happy because it was my first striper of the year even though it was a small one. I tossed it out again, set up my second line with anchovies and before I could put it down I had another fish on. Sure enough it was another small striper. Unfortunately this time the little guy was bleeding badly. I tossed him in and he started floating so I caught him with the net and tried to revive him. I also heard that Coke cauterizes wounds in fish and I just happened to have a coke and gave it a try. When I tossed the fish in again he began to swim around a bit but eventually began floating. I felt terrible. 

For whatever reason the small striper catching continued. At one point I had a double and I set both hooks, Caught my biggest fish of the day (which didn’t make it big) was 12 in. on the striper pole off of anchovies and another on my catfish pole. I didn’t even realize that a boat of skiers was watching me and they all started clapping when I did that! Lol I gave them the finger… and by that I mean a thumbs up! 

It was getting ridiculous. It got to the point where I couldn’t even set my rod down before it was already getting hit. I tossed both rods in the same area hoping for at least a legal striper but there only seemed to be small ones in this school. I’m sure the big ones were hanging around but they weren’t biting my bait. At one point I got a bigger bite and originally I thought and hoped it was an 18“er but it wasn’t. it turned out to be a 16 in pikeminnow.  I felt terrible because I was catching all of the fish and my dad ended up skunked. I attempted to give him my spot but he refused, he was only going to catch fish on his own terms. Oh that pesky man pride! 

I ended the day with 16 fish but unfortunately not one keeper.  Even so it was a blast to catch all of those stripers and a great father’s day for me, maybe not so much for ol pops. What can I say, he got the father’s day gifts and I got the father’s day fish.


** I realize that this 16 fish day put me over 80 fish which was my total for the entire year of 2013. Let's get to the 200's!!

Total Fish: 15 Stripers + 1 pikeminnow = 16 fish