Mike Andrews Fishing

Summer time on the Delta can be some of the frustrating times to fish. Its always windy and the pleasure boats will muddy up your spot in no time. To combat this you need to get out early! fish all of the high traffic areas first thing in the morning, then when the wind and the boat traffic picks up, move into the tullies islands such as Mildread, Franks Tract or Big Break and marinas. Look for shade and deeper water in the middle of the day. The punch bite had been steady too. There are a lot of big rafts of perrywinkle weed floating around and it makes great cover for big bass. Getting them out is another story. Be prepared to lose a few, but if you use a big heavy rod with 65-80# braided line you will be able to horse some of the hogs out of the stuff. Work big topwater baits and frogs early and late in the day and punch and flip jigs and plastic’s in the middle of the day and you should be able to put together a solid day on the River.

Good Fishing,
Mike

Well this is the last weekend of fishing for me for some time. Next Wednesday I go under the knife to get my torn rotator cuff fixed and will be out of commission for at least 6 weeks. So I decided to take my 8 year old son Michael up river for some Small mouth fishing on Fathers day weekend. We ended up catching 78 of these hard fighting bass in less than 4 hours! Great fun for the beginner. We started at Vieira’s and fished towards Isleton using red speed traps and swimming yamamoto grubs on dart heads. Most of the fish are small 8”-12” but we did get a hand full over 2 pounds. Still great fun with the boy, and his smile says it all. Happy Fathers Day you all you Dads.

As far as the Largemouth fishing on the Delta right now, the fish have really settled into their summer pattern. Look for a good top water bite in the morning and in the afternoon using Lunker Punkers in open water and Frogs in the weeds and muck. For the rest of the day look for shade with current. Shade can be as little as a piece of wood or a rock so look for it very closely. Crankbaits, Dropshot and Swimbaits are my favorites this time of year. There is also good number of fish in the weeds in the summer time. Weeds also make shade as does the rafts of pennywort floating around out there. You can punch that stuff with a 1 1/2oz weight a 4/0 hook with a double wide Sweet Beaver. Use a very stout rod like the Dobyns 805 Flip with heavy braided line. You really need to pull on these fish to get them up and out of the thick stuff. Have fun out there and make sure to wear your life vest as it gets pretty busy out there in the Summer.

Good fishing,
Mike

Its been a couple off weeks since my last report. I fished 2 tournaments since then. The Berkley Big Bass Challenge and the last ABA of the year. I’ll report on both, if anyone reads this stuff, please leave a comment below so I know I an not just talking to myself! LOL.

The weekend of 6/6 and 6/7 was the Berkley Big Bass Challenge. It was a big fish format using only Berkley baits on the Delta. Each hour 8 fish were paid and the largest of each hour would receive a key that at the end of day 2 would start a brand new Toyota Tundra! Needless to say our goal was for each of us to win a hour so we had two chances at the truck. Each person could only win one key so we would have a 2 in 12 chance to win the truck if we reached our goal. Saturday started off and we were throwing the Berkley version of a spook called a Frenzy Walker. We started catching fish right off up to about 4 pounds. Our game plan was to come in during hour two to have our best chance at winning a hour or at least a chance at cashing one of the hourly prizes. At our second stop we started punching the periwinkle weed with a 1 1/2 oz weight and a chigger craw. About 10 minutes in I get a “thunk” and set the hook, and its ON! I got a big fish stuck in the very thick weeds. I rear back on my Dobyn’s 805 flipping stick as hard as I can to pull this fish up through the weeds and right in the waiting net! We knew it was around 7 pounds and would be enough to win one of the hours but when? This is where the strategy comes in. We thought for sure the first hour would have a big fish weighed and we were right, a 10.50 (which ended up being the biggest of the tourney) was weighed in during the first hour. We came in during the second hour and when we put her on the scale she weighed 7.33 pounds good enough to win the 2nd hour and $500. Awesome! After being held up for over an hour doing a polygraph test we head back out to get Bobby his fish. Well we didn’t catch a good fish the rest of the day, so we went home to rest up for day two. On Sunday we basically did the same thing at the same areas as day one, but the bite was allot tougher as the wind died to nothing and was sunny after Saturdays cloudy windy weather. I ended up catching one fish just over 4 pounds and won another $100 but Bobby never did get that big bite we were looking for. So Sunday at the awards we all (12) draw a key to try in the truck. We lined up with the biggest fish going 1st. I think I was about 6th or 7th to try my key. With each guy trying his key and them not working my excitement was building all for NOT when the guy right in front of me started the truck and won it!! I was next to try my key . Oh well still a great weekend fishing and $600 to show for it.

Yesterday 6/13 Bobby D and I fished the last of the year ABA Delta circuit. It was going to be a close race for Anglers of the Year between us and another team with them leading by 6 points going in so we had our work cut out for us. We head out to the same spot that we fished the week before with the Frenzy Walkers. The wind was blowing very hard! Up to 30mph and we were not getting bit so I switch to something with a little more presents in the choppy water. I put on a rattling injected Black Dog Lunker Punker and it was “Game on”! The fish were crushing that bait! Some awesome top water bites. We had about 16 pounds in the boat in 30 minutes, As we come up to some floating weeds I pick up a frog and toss it between the bank and the weeds and “Swoosh” a nice 5 pounder grabs my frog! After a quick fight she is in the boat. We jump around to a few spots and catch some smaller fish and another 5 pounder on a senko. We are up to about 19 pounds but are still fishing hard to cull out another 3+ in the live well. Finally around 1:00pm we go back to our starting spot and with the tide down we could see all of the open lanes in the weeds so we decide to throw frogs and wake baits in the holes and lanes in the weeds and hope for one more big bite. About 15 minutes later I see a big bass dart out of a weed patch right at my wake bait! “Fish on”! Bobby D stellar on the net as usual and in the box she goes a nice 5 3/4 pounder and out goes a 3 pounder! Now we are up to 21+. We fish out the day and go in to weigh our fish. We were in the 2nd flight and when we weighed we had 21.68 and took the lead! But there was still 15 teams or so to weigh in so we didn’t get too happy until the last boat weighed in and we had won! Then we find out that the team we were chasing had a tough day, so we won AOY too! Very cool. It was our 2nd in two years and 7th total. Bobby and I have been fishing together for 11 years now and I couldn’t ask for a better partner. We fish as a “Team” really well and I look foreward to many more years fishing with Bobby. We would like to thank a few of our sponsors. Russo’s Marina, The Hook Line & Sinker, Dobyn’s Rods, Black Dog Baits, Bobby D’s Baits and Lowrance. All of these company’s help up to do what we love and have fun doing it.

Good fishing,
Mike

Busy, Bust, Busy!!! It is Memorial weekend on the Delta and there are a ton of boats out there! There are a bunch of Stren guys out practicing for this weeks up coming tournament along with the holiday weekend traffic! The fishing is toughend up a bunch with all of the boats running around. The best bet is to get out early and hit the good spots before the skiers get out, then head to the marinas and flooded shallow islands to get out of the boat traffic. There is a top water bite, but it is hit and miss I would try it 1st thing in the morning and if you don’t get any bites in the first hour give it up and change to something a little deeper and slowed like jigs, senko’s or a drop shot. I did get my 1st fish of the year over 10 pounds this week on a Black Dog Go2Minnow waking it on the surface. The fish crushed it in 3′ of water in a shade pocket at 9am on Rock Slough and fought great. It was on a Dobyns 735C rod with 50 pound power pro braid.

Good luck and be safe out there! And WEAR YOUR LIFE VEST!!

Good fishing,
Mike

I fished the ABA Delta tournament yesterday. It took 25+ pounds to win and almost 20 to get in the top 10. We had 20.70 pounds. We caught all of our fish on Bobby D chattterbaits, Senko’s and swimbaits. Most of the fish are done spawning now. A new wave moved up last week, but they are mostly gone now too. All of the fish we caught were post spawners. The top water bite has been good for the last week, with a bunch of fish being taken on Black Dog Lunker Punkers. Evening time is best for the top water bite unless you get overcast skies, then it will last all day. The fish will move into the current this time of year. When they get done spawning, they move out onto the points and sit in the eddies created. This is a great pattern to fish and can get you a bunch of bites. Good Luck!

Good Fishing,
Mike

Last week the Delta was ON FIRE!! Of course I had to work all week, but a lot of my friends were catchin em’ big time! The top water bite was off the hook during the overcast days. The Black Dog Lunker Punker was the best bait along with the frog.  Guys were reporting many big fish up to 10 pounds.  Then the weekend comes and I am greeted with sunny skies and 20mph winds!! :-(.

Last weekend I fished the Won Bass super team tournament and didn’t do so good. Saturday we had 20 pounds but on Sunday we only had about 14 pounds and didn’t even weigh in.

This Saturday I fished the ABA team tournament out of Russo’s Marina and fared much better. We caught about 20 fish with our best 5 going 25 pounds good enough for 3rd place. 27 pounds won it and they had a 15.59 Kicker bass in their limit!!! What a awesome fish! We caught our fish on Senko’s, Crankbaits and Bobby D’s Chatterbaits.

There are a lot of bed fish up right now. I don’t fish for them, but the guys that do say they are very skittish and move off the bed when you come near. The water temp is holding at 58-60*. It is a few weeks behind last year at this time, but fishing is still good and will continue to get better in the coming weeks. Watch for more of these teeners to come to the scales!

Good fishing,
Mike.

Is getting a little better day by day, not as fast as I expected due to the up and down weather but the water temp is up to 62 * and the big fish are starting to show up. The Won Bass Team tourney at Russo’s Marina yesterday took 30+ pounds to win and the winners had a bass almost 12 pounds! I have heard about a few other big fish being caught this last week up to 14 pounds, so the big ones are biting you just have to put in some time and have a little luck.

I was out yesterday (Saturday) by myself. The morning started off good with 7 fish from 2-3 pounds with in the 1st 30 minutes then I went the next 2 hours without a bite. I just kept moving around covering water until I got a bit, then slowed down and worked the area and started picking up some nice fish. I ended up catching 20 bass including two over 7 pounds and three in the 5 pound range! They came on Bobby D’s Chatter baits, Jigs and Senko’s in 3’-5’ of water.

Things are starting to happen on the Delta. The next few weeks will be the best of the year. If your planning a trip, now is the time.

Good Fishing,
Mike

This week on Delta was beautiful! Great weather, good fishing and the spawn is just days away. My team partner (Bobby D) and I got out yesterday (Saturday) and was met with overcast skies and 20mph wind! That toughened thing up a bit and kept us off some of our favorite fishing spots so we decided to go towards the middle Delta where it is easier to get out of the wind. We had our best success in the connection slough and Mildred Island areas. We caught some fish on Bobby D’s custom Chatterbaits and Osprey swimbaits. Shad colors worked best. We ended up catching 9 bass for the day up to 6 ½ pound, and our best 5 going 25+.

If you headed out this week I would recommend staying in and around the flooded islands like Mandaville, Franks Tract, Mildred to name a few. Senko’s are hard to beat in the spring, but cranks, swimbaits, chatterbaits, jigs will draw some bites too. In the coming weeks you will see the top water bite produce some giant fish! The Black Dog Lunker Punker is THE bait to catch a fish of a life time! I have already started throwing them and have had some huge blow ups, but its just a little early for them to commit. The new injected 6” or 8” are the ticket.

Get out there and catch a fish of a life time. Now is the time!

Good Fishing,
Mike

The Delta this week toughend up for most. The water temp is staying around 55 degrees but the water is very stained. I fished a tournament yesterday and was only able to catch 8 fish up to 3 pounds. 27 pounds won so some pople are still catching them. The up and down weather is responsable for the tough bite, BUT this week will be sunny and I expect the bite to bust wide open by next weekend! The staging fish will move up into the shallows and the pre-spawn bite will be good. Look for shallow flats adjcent to deep water. Baits like senkos, jigs, chatterbaits and spinnerbaits will produce good fish. If you want to catch a new prsonal best, the next couple of weeks on the Delta is the place to do it!!