On Sat, 7 May 2011 09:12:25 -0700 (PDT), Dale Gillespie wrote:

The weather and the tides were predicted to be just too good to miss
on the Sacramento River near Rio Vista, Ca. I headed for Rio Vista
with the C-Dory in tow on Wednesday with plans to fish two days. My
friend, Willie, would join me on Day 2.

I pretty much frittered away the day trying to fish shallow areas of
the Old Sac near Isleton on Wednesday, and spent much of my time
removing weeds and other debris from my leader. It was frustrating and
was not productive. The next day's current would be considerably
slower and therefore be less "weedy" - or so I hoped.

After breakfast in Rio Vista on Thursday, Willie and I headed about
five miles downriver to the Decker Island area to try for sturgeon. We
managed to catch a few small stripers - even on eel meant only for
sturgeon - but all were tossed back.

A nearby boat caught and released a sturgeon of about 68 inches on
Thursday morning, and that encouraged us. But it was not be a sturgeon
day for us. We kept at it 'til about 1530, then called it quits. No
sturgeon this trip, but fishing still beats working. Working? Willie
and I haven't had a job in years - how would we know?!

It was still somewhat weedy, but not as bad as the day before.

Lots of photos from the trip and more blather at my homepage:
http://fishwisher.wordpress.com/2011/05/06/959/

Being humbled is good for the soul, they say. And there's always next
week...

When the sturgeon aren't biting, is there something you can fall back on that's edible - like
croaker?