Pausing as he began to think about that concept he said, “There are guys that want to hear about how to catch fish, but those guys want you to take them to your water, show you how to catch ‘em, let them beat you there on tournament day and congratulate them when they win, I’m not doin’ that.” We’ll go out fishin’ and I will show you how I catch ‘em and we’ll take some pictures, if guys recognize where we’re fishing and what we’re doin’ then they deserve to catch ‘em because they know the Delta and they’ve done their homework.”
Excited by the upcoming prospect of fishing with Dee, I asked a host of questions. These were a few that sparked visible passion in the legendary Dee Thomas.
What was the Delta like when you started fishing it?
There were no weeds. With no weeds, if you caught a 15 to 17-lb sack, you could win every tournament there was. I know, I was doin’ it when 15-lbs a day would get you a big check; 17-lbs a day, virtually guaranteed you a win and to catch an 8-lbr’s was a career fish. I fished darn-near, 20-years in the Delta to catch my first 8-lb’r. After the weeds came in and generated the growth, I caught ten bass in one year that were over 10-lbs.
This year alone, my partner got one over 11-lbs and I got one over 10, in a tournament and they didn’t come out of the Tract or any area that they have sprayed.
How else do you feel fishing has changed on the Delta?
Up until five years ago our Delta was rated in the top five in the U.S. not the Western United States but in the whole U.S. Now it has declined. If the politicians have their way about it they will kill all the black bass and the stripers. They are forgetting about the revenue that both those species bring in. Bass fishermen… we protect our sport because we don’t kill our fish. We have gone to great expense to have aquariums in our boats to keep these fish alive during the day. Fish and Game has regulated
us so much, like one five
lb’r to a bag and other
rules to protect what
we are doing, but no
one is protecting the
fish from what the
politicians are doing.
That’s one of the
biggest problems
right there.
ISSUE 2 June 2011
13