Guides Day Off

Well, I finally had a day off today so I decided to do a little fishing. Two runs, two fish. The first a small Jack Salmon on a #8 Duck Turd. The second, an acrobatic hatchery steelhead that came to a #8 silent assassin on a floating line.

The Silent Assassin will soon be available thru Idylwilde Flies in their 2010 catalog. Also, check out my other patterns, the Duck Turd, Skinny Spratley, and October Hilton that have been top producers on the Trinity/Klamath systems the last couple of years. Yes, I know, shameless self promotion! But the royalties are much needed for new tying materials to come up with new winter patterns for 2011!

October is almost here....

and i hope that it is going to bring cooler weather than we have had up here on the Trinity in September. It has been too damn hot, which has made the steelhead fishing a low light game for the last couple of weeks. Every once in a while we have hooked a fish mid day but almost all our action has been first or last light. Water temps are still in the mid to upper 60's and once they drop, the fish should become even a little grabbier!

This past week saw a few big pods of salmon and steelhead move into the river. Most steelhead were of the hatchery variety but Rick Anderson managed to land this beautiful wild buck on a floating line.

The same day Jim Zech managed a nice fish on a skated muddler.

The following three days Rudd Corwin landed his first ever steelhead on a spey rod swinging flies. One of the hottest steelhead I have ever seen hooked in the lower Trinity. Rudd managed to land two steelhead and a handful of bright half pounders. A successful trip for his first time swinging flies on the lower Trinity River.

While fishing is not quite as hot as the weather, we have had steelhead to the fly 5 of the last 6 days. A good push of half pounders has shown as well and are also adding to the mix. In the next couple of weeks, we will see big pushes of steelhead into the Trinity and this is the best time to chase these fish on skated dries and swung wet flies. The grabs are exhilirating and the fish are hot. I only have a few dates available in the next few weeks which should see some of the best floating line steelheading on the year!

JH

Lower Trinity Report

Sorry for the delay. Been having some issues with posting photos here on the blog. Some of you may noticed a couple of test photos put up here earlier in the week. Most of the photos have been looking washed out. Any ideas? If so, drop me a note. Until then, you will have to do without a few photos for a little while.

This past week saw good fishing on the lower stretches of the Trinity. The high water releases from the Hoopa Boat Dance a couple of weeks ago brought in a good slug of steelhead and a few salmon. In past years we have seen this push of high water bring in a mixture of hatchery and wild fish but this year we have been seeing more wild fish to the fly. All fish landed we chrome bright wild steelhead in the 3-5 lb range and full of spunk! With the water being low and clear, skated dry flies and small wet flies on floating lines have been the key.

One of the highlights of the week for me was watching from a high bank, a steelhead take a skated muddler. The fly passed in within three feet of this fish on three separate drifts only to take the fly on the third drift when it looked to be right on its nose. Another cool thing is that this fish took a skated fly off the surface at about 10:30 with the sun directly in its face. Just goes to show that the most aggressive fish don't care about the the sun!

Fishing is only going to get better from here on out as we will start to see bigger pushes of fish in the next two months. The next 40-50 days is prime time fishing on the lower Klamath and Trinity rivers for classic floating line fishing for summer/fall run steelhead. To stay up to date with current reports, available dates, and trip specials, sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of our homepage www.steelheadonthespey.com

JH

Cloudy waters, blue skies, and the wild summer runs of the Deschutes River

Just over a week ago I hosted a group of five anglers on a four day, three night camp trip on the Deschutes River thru Deschutes Angler Fly Shop. A few days prior to the trip, the areas around the Deschutes were met with triple digit temperatures causing a large chunk of the glacier on Mt. Hood to melt. Driving over the White river on Sunday, it was flowing rather quickly and looked like white mud.


After seeing the White river and knowing we were probably going to have to fish sink tips and larger flies, I have to admit I was a bit bummed out. My dreams of hooking wild Deschutes river summer runs on floating lines and skaters under the low light of the rivers canyon walls would probably have to wait till next trip. Oh well, its steelheading, how often do we get ideal conditions when we want them! Heck, if we ever did, steelhead would not be called the fish of a 1,000 casts!


We loaded up monday morning and were off for a four day, forty mile float down to the mouth of the Deschutes. In the course of four days we witnessed a variety of wild life from Bald Eagles, Bighorn Sheep, and bright wild summer run steelhead. We had many grabs each day. Some were nice fat Deschutes redside rainbows and others were just short plucks from an unwilling steelhead. We all had quite a few non-committal plucks from these ocean run rainbows. Part of you would think for a brief second, was that a trout? Only to put another cast in the same spot and get slammed by a streak of silver. When the fish really wanted it, they took the fly with authority. Many of us were blessed with hard grabs and long runs from these summer run torpedos. Bill Carnazzo hooked one of the hottest fish of the trip a chrome bright wild buck in the 9-10 lb range that had him in his backing before he could blink. Kudos to a great fish Bill!


Over the four days we had fish take a variety of flies from #6 sparse hairwing summer patterns to 4" long purple and black Intruder and marabou style patterns. A few fish were hooked on floating lines but a majority of fish were taken on sink tips. Fish were hooked in slow moving boulder stream tailouts, walking speed riffely runs, and fast pieces of pocket water not many would think to fish. There is a reason this place is so well loved. The Deschutes has everything someone would want in a river filled with grabby summer steelhead!

All things considered I think we had pretty good fishing considering the conditions. Visibility ranged anywhere from 2-3' and varied from hour to hour. Every time we thought the river was clearing, we would wake up from a nap after lunch only to find the viz had almost gotten worse. Keeping a positive mindset and fishing sink tips and bigger flies most were able to connect with a fish or two each day. By the end, everyone on the trip had landed at least one fish.


A big hanks goes out to John and Amy Hazel from Deschutes Angler for the opportunity to host a trip. They have an amazing fly shop and guide service and anyone on their way to the Deschuutes should check out! Another big thanks to our camp host and guides Harley, Gordon, Charles, and Travis for working extremely hard everyday putting our group of anglers onto fish. Not to mention the entertaining jokes and conversations they created around the dinner table each night. The trip was fantastic! We had great campsites each night, good company, and amazing food. A big thanks to John and Harley for the meals. The chicken with the mango salsa is one of the best chicken dishes I have ever had and I am hoping John will share the recipe! Thanks to Bill, John, Fred, Kevin, and Spencer for joining me on the trip and hopefully we can do it again next year.

More pics to come...

JH