Here are a couple of pics from the past couple days, despite the lack of rain we have had a solid return of wild Steelhead on the Trinity. Overall the fishing in January and so far in February has been pretty solid. The conditions have been less then ideal with the low water but the Trinity has benefitted from the meager release out of Lewiston dam, compared to the coastal streams that rely exclusively on rain, we were sitting pretty. fortunately all that has changed with a significant change in the weather pattern. We have been getting steady but not heavy rain on the Trinity over last week or two, conditions now are ideal.If your thinking about fishing the Trinity next November or December you might consider January or February, the days are often warmer and the river is less crowded.

Here are a couple of pics from the last couple days. Rain is on the way, probably not enough to make much of a difference right now but it could be a sign of an overall pattern change ! Keep your fingers crossed !

No big changes on the Trinity, conditions remain low and clear. There are a fair amount of steelhead about but they don’t come easily. Those anglers that have honed there skills and put there time in are doing the best, some are landing multiple steelhead a day but there are many that are getting skunked. The upside is that the fishing pressure compared to recent years is pretty light. The weather forecaster’s are calling for some changes, hopefully there will is an end in sight to this long dry spell, keep your fingers crossed.

The conditions remain low, clear and cold here on the Trinity. With that said the temps are moderating a bit and the brutally cold weather seems to be behind us for now. The up side is that there are a fair amount of fish around and most seem to be Wild ! Here are a few pics from the past couple of day’s.

I guided Paul from Berkley today in some of the absolute coldest weather in years. Here on the Trinity we received a hefty amount of snow on Friday, well over 5 inches at the river’s edge. Water temps are very cold, but regardless there are steelhead that will move to the fly. Today, we hooked 2 and landed one, which was a beautiful wild hen in that 27″ – 28″ class that was as bright as you will see this far up river. That aggressive fish would have eaten a well swung fly, even in this cold weather.

The conditions continue to be low and clear with no rain on the horizon. Despite that Steelhead continue to trickle into the system and anglers working hard manage to have multiple opportunities during the day with a fish or two landed.

Steelhead continue to filter into the Trinity as do the anglers, boat and bank traffic have picked up considerably in the JC area this past week. I guided the lower river Friday and Saturday, both days we saw pods of Steelhead on the move, we had good action on 1/2 pounders to 16″ with a few missed opportunities on larger Steelhead. We mixed the days up with a combination of swing fishing and fishing nymphs and eggs under an indicator and we were successful with both !Tom hooked and landed a nice Chinook about 10lbs. on a swung fly, the fish crushed a size 8 traditional steelhead pattern. We are still in dyer need of rain, the fishing could break wide open with a rise in the river, keep your fingers crossed !

Low and Clear !The release out of Lewiston Lake into the Trinity river has been lowered to it’s winter flow of 300 CFS till April 2014 and since we haven’t had any significant rain since late September to get the tributaries running the Trinity is running Very Low!Boat traffic in the JC and Douglas City area hasn’t been to bad but there are allot of bank anglers out, especially in the mid river from Big Flat to Cedar Flat.As for the fishing I would rate it fair, there are Steelhead around but with the skinny conditions and moderate fishing pressure fishing is a little tough. We’ll have to wait to see if we have as large of a run as last year, there doesn’t seem to be as many Salmon around as last year if that’s an indicator.I guided Brady from San Francisco, who in 3 short years has become quite the Spey aficionado. We floated two different drifts, one middle river and one lower river, we saw Steelhead, hooked Steelhead but were unable to bring any to hand. That’s the beauty of early Steelhead, there HOT!, and not easily landed.

Well after a last minute law suit by Westlands Water District aka Darth Vader, to stop what everyone else in the world thought was the right thing to do, the water is now flowing ! At this time the release out of Lewiston Lake is about 1400 cfs. The release is scheduled to ramp up to 2650 cfs by midnight tonight and then ramp down to 850 cfs after Tuesday and stay at 850 cfs until Sept 19th and then ramp down to 450 cfs till mid October. This is the medicine that the Trinity and more importantly the Klamath needed, water temps in the Lower Klamath have been hovering around 70 – 74 degrees for a month or more. This flushing flow should reduce stress on the fish and hopefully flush out any pathogens that have been building with the low flows and high temps. To date there has been a decent run of Summer Steelhead that have entered the Klamath and most of which are headed for the Trinity, the cooler temps in the river will entice more Steelies to leave the salt as well as an estimated 272,000 Fall Run Chinook. Looking to be a good year, despite the efforts of Darth Vader ie; Westlands Water District !

I guided the Grunbaum family over the last few days and even though the temps were in the 20s and 30s the fishing has held up. We hooked and landed Steelhead everyday, mostly nice bright winter run 4-6 lbs.and an occasional Fall fish in full spawning color. There is still plenty of time to book a trip for this season. If the season so far is any indication, I anticipate that we will have a good number of Steelhead in the system through early March as well as the occasional Brown.