Trinity River

November 2006

 “All you need is a Little Rain”

You can tell when its steelhead time on the Trinity, just drive down Highway 299 and you’ll see the cars parked at every turn out and empty trailers at every launch point.  Weekend traffic can be quite heavy but that doesn’t mean that you can’t catch steelhead.  If I have learned anything over the years about guiding for steelhead is to be patience and success is not measured in numbers of fish landed. 

For the first group of anglers, the Trinity was running low, clear and the outside temperature was well below freezing.  It was frozen guides and fly lines in the morning until 10 am.  There were steelhead in the system from Lewiston to well below Junction City but the main concentration of fish was still down river.  A little rain would help bring them up.  The first couple of days most of the fish were caught on indicators, but that all changed on their final day as the conditions changed.  From here on out almost all of the steelhead were caught on the “swing”.  If you never experienced catching double digit steelhead on a swinging fly you are missing out; it is the preferred way to steelhead fish. 

As the second group arrived, they were greeted by some much needed rain.  Their first day on the river, it rained all day, and the steelhead started to show up in larger numbers. There were steelhead in every run, which made for some exciting fishing in the runs and tail-outs.  Just about every steelhead was caught swinging traditional steelhead patterns.  Although we hooked a fair number of steelhead each day, landing these hard fighting fish was another story.    On the second day, I dropped anchor at one tail-out where John, Phil and I watch in amazement as a school of steelhead, maybe as many as 200 fish swam by us.  The rain definitely had the fish on the move.  Of the twelve anglers that fished with us this year, only one did not get a hook up.

Check the web page for pictures as they become available.

From Vic, Joe, Doug and myself, many thanks to all of you that joined us, check the schedule, we’ll be back again next year.

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