JAY SORENSON

Posthumous

The original owner of Jolly's Bait Shop on Pacific Avenue in Stockton, many considered Sorensen to be the ‘best bait fisherman’ in the San Joaquin River Delta.

Sorensen operated a fishing guide service on the Delta for more than 40 years. “He served as a mentor to generations of Delta anglers.” Sorensen was probably most well-known for founding the California Striped Bass Association in 1974.

“He was the first to sound the alarm about the deteriorating Delta ecology and fisheries,” said Roger Mammon, president of the CSBA West Delta Chapter and secretary of the Restore the Delta Board. “He no longer saw striped bass spawning in the San Joaquin River as they had for decades.”

The striped bass population began declining after the State Water Project went on line in conjunction with the Federal Central Valley Project.

Sorensen then rallied his fishing friends and founded the California Striped Bass Association to advocate for restoration of the fishery. The association expanded and currently has five active chapters. “It is the oldest continuously operating fresh water fishing organization in the state,” Mammon said.

Sorensen guided thousands of people fishing for striped bass and other species on the San Joaquin River, including celebrities, sports figures and even politicians. The nickname “Jolly” came from his penchant for humor and joke telling,

In explaining his reason for the founding of CSBA, Sorensen told Hurley in an interview, “We became very concerned that the huge spawning runs in the San Joaquin River disappeared almost overnight in the early ’70s, since you used to be able to go out on the river at night and watch the small males bumping the females on the surface for acres. The surface of the river was white from all of the milt.”

Besides fighting for the restoration of striped bass and his beloved Delta, Sorensen was also an outdoor writer. He authored the “Let’s Go Fishing” in the Rio Vista Herald for more than 40 years, as well as writing for other publications, including the Fish Sniffer magazine. In 2015, the Bay/Delta Yachtsman awarded Sorensen the Hal Schell Award.

Sorensen had many memorable sayings. One of the most notable was, “The Delta is my Sistine Chapel. There are no two sunsets alike on the Delta.” Another saying showed his deep understanding of California fish and water politics: “The San Joaquin River flows by gravity for its first 100 miles, but it flows by politics for the remainder of its journey to the ocean.”