Beware: Off-Limits area in the Delta

While on a recent trip to the California Delta I found myself in the middle of an unfortunate circumstance. It appears that I unknowingly fished in an area that is closed to boat traffic. When situations of this nature happen there are two options. The first and most attractive is to hide the mistake and hope other anglers don’t hear about it.
The second option is to step out and make an example of your mistake in the hopes that other anglers can learn from it and not fall into the same situation. With this post I am choosing the later.
Let me begin by stating very clearly that the small stretch of 7 Mile Slough that parallels the East shore of Brannan Island State Park near 3 Mile Slough is closed to boat traffic.
I’m sorry to admit this came as a surprise to me when an officer met me at the Brannan Island launch ramp to discuss where I had been fishing. The officer was understandably upset and I drove home with a hefty ticket in my possession.

I was quite surprised by the situation as I had never realized this area was closed. There are marked buoys at the mouth of the slough but they appear to clearly define a seperation between the swim beach and a boat lane. No other signage is present but that does not change the fact that despite the appearance, the entire slough is closed.
It seems that if I choose to fish this area again in the future it will be from shore. I hope my error finds each of you before you make a similar mistake.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this matter. Were you already aware of this off-limits area or does it come as a surprise to you? I hope that through this post we are able to have improved signage placed at the confluence of 3 and 7 mile sloughs to help prevent similar occurances in the future.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving from Tacticalbassin! We are so thankful for each one of our readers. You are what makes this blog a success and we are so greatful to have you here. We wish the best for you and your family on this holiday weekend. Be safe if you’re traveling and best of luck catching the fish of a lifetime on your next outing!

Take a kid fishing

I spent the last week scoping out water, talking to friends, watching the weather, and anything else I could think of so that my nephew would have a great time when we went fishing. Game day came and the weather was perfect, we practically had the lake to ourselves and there were fish all over the graph. As luck would have it, the bite had shut down. One nice smallmouth to the side of the boat was all we had to show for a full day on the water.

As you can imagine I was a little bummed out. That is, until I started listening to what he was saying. He didn’t care that we didn’t catch fish. He got to see an eagle, run around on shore (track mud all over the boat), and throw his brand new crankbait. Sure, catching fish would have been nice but it wasn’t what made or broke his day.
The point of this story is that you need to take a kid fishing. Don’t have kids? Me either! Ask a family member or friend if their kids would like to spend a day on the water. They don’t care if you’re on fish or not and a day away from the tv, computer, and classroom will do them some good!
There will always be good reasons not to go but before you know it those kids will be grown up and won’t share our love for the outdoors. Stop your busy schedule for a day and head to a lake, stream, or river near you so that the little ones can fall in love with this sport we all love so much.

River Fishing for Smallmouth

If all you care about is winning tournaments or catching giant bass it may be time to look at your priorities. Monster bass are a blast to catch but sometimes you need to take a break and remember what made fishing so fun in the first place. Fishing is about getting out on th water, relaxing, enjoying nature, and then catching fish.
Added to the list of fun ways to catch fish when you want to mix it up a bit: River fishing for smallmouth. Northern California (and most other places in the country) have an abundance of rivers that are completely full of undersized bass. These fisheries are rarely, if ever overfished and can provide a great fishing experience for children or a relaxing day on the water. The other perk to river fishing is you never know what you’re going to catch. On this outing we caught smallmouth, largemouth and sacramento pike. Its hard to beat that! (except maybe if you’re looking for a keeper-size fish, let alone a trophy.) While there are trophy class fish in rivers around the country most simply have healthy populations of modest-size fish.

Give it a try in a stream or river near you!