Lower Trinity River Update

Late August into early September usually marks the first big push of steelhead into the lower Trinity River. This past week I made my way up north to do a little "scouting" work and see where the fish might be. The first day out my friend Will and I floated a 6 mile section of river. Our goal was to fish a few runs and snorkel a few looking for fish. We managed to spot a few salmon while snorkeling and a handful of steelhead holding near tailouts. While we didn't manage any fish it was nice to be on the water. 

The next couple of days I was able to fish with good friends Adrian and Teresa Psuty. Our goal was to hopefully find some chrome in the lower river and get Teresa into her first adult steelhead. Teresa might possibly be on the best female spey casters around, so all we needed to do was to locate a few fish. Conditions proved to be tough as we had warm weather, high pressure, low water, and very few fish around. We fished hard for three days and only managed a couple of half pounders. We spotted a couple of adults but they didn't seem to want to cooperate. Here's a pic of Teresa launching some line in a prime run.

My last day out I was able to fish a couple of runs early in the morning and managed to boil a nice steelhead to a skated muddler in a tailout. After switching flies a couple times and going back thru the tailout, I was unable to bring the fish back. Oh well, it is always a blast to see that swirl under your fly whether you hook up or not! 

This year we have seen very dry conditions which are having their effects on our North Coast rivers. We are seeing some of the lowest rivers levels I have ever seen. The water temps have been pretty good since we are seeing shorter days and cool nights. Very little rain and low water could be keeping many steelhead out in the ocean. Right now it looks like the run might be a couple of weeks behind, but we should start to see some good pushes of fish into the Klamath and Trinity in the next couple of weeks. I plan on starting my guiding season around September 20th and we should have a good number of fish in the lower Trinity by then. From then until the middle of October is the best time to get out on the lower Trinity River and fish for steelhead on spey rods and floating lines. Go for the grab!