Trinity River Steelhead Trip
On Friday I fished the Trinity River in Northern California, and had one of the best days fishing for Steelhead that I've ever had.
A friend of mine from the Mt Shasta area met me in Weaverville on Thursday night with his raft. Flows on the river have been dropped to 300 cfs which makes using a drift boat difficult, but it's perfect for a raft.
We launched early Friday morning from Junction City with the plan being to float from there to Pigeon Point. I had my 9?6? Winston BIIx 7 wt rigged with 9? of 2X leader with a Golden Stone Fly as the point fly, and an Egg pattern about 20 inches below that on 3X. We drifted down into the first good run and saw fish working; several large Steelhead were rolling and splashing below us. Within a couple of minutes I was into the first fish of the day. He jumped and tailed walked across the run, and finally threw the fly; bummer, I would have liked to have netted him.
A few minutes later, and I was into another good fish with the same result. He was on for a couple of minutes, and then threw the fly. In between the two Steelhead, I caught and released a couple of Salmon Smolt. A 4 inch Smolt on a 7 wt rod is not much of a challenge.
With the early action we figured it wouldn?t be long till we had another fish on, but that was not to be the case. For the rest of the morning, and into the afternoon we saw working fish, but just couldn?t seem to entice them. I tried all of the tricks, changed flies, varied the depth, adjusted the weight, but nothing seemed to work. Oh well I thought, this is Steelhead fishing and it?s not supposed to be easy.
We continued slowly working our way down river, stopping occasionally to get out of the raft and wade likely looking spots. About three o?clock we pulled out above a good looking run. I had changed flies and now had a beadhead prince and a caddis pupa on. I waded out, cast up stream, and let the flies drift down over the ledge and into a deeper hole below me. On the second drift, I was into a good fish. About five minutes later and I had my first steelhead in the net, a nice 7 lb wild fish.
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I waded back out and drifted into the hole again, this time catching another Smolt. Another drift, another Smolt. On the third drift, the rod tip bent, and I was into another good fish. It was another wild steelhead of about 5 lbs.
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My arm was getting tired, these fish really put up a battle, so I took a short break and then started again. My next fish was a ?half pounder,? which is a juvenile steelhead. This one was about 17 inches long and weighed about a pound and a half.
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I continued working the run, and was soon into the fourth fish; this time it was a Jack Salmon of about 6 pounds. Wow, Steelhead and Salmon, the Smolts didn?t count. The fifth and sixth fish were two more wild steelhead in the 6 to 8 lb range; who said steelhead fishing was difficult?
The sun was getting lower in the West and we were thinking about getting back in the raft and starting down river. I drifted my flies through the hole one more time, and the rod suddenly bent double. Whoa, what?s going on here I thought. Ten minutes later I landed an 18 lb buck Chinook salmon. He was beat up a bit, but still strong and full of fight. I quickly returned him to the river and he scooted off to keep his appointment with a Hen somewhere up stream.
It was time to go so we climbed back into the raft and started down river. I was drifting my flies in front of us as we started down through the hole when bang, the rod was nearly pulled out of my hand.
For the next 25 minutes I was in the midst of a battle that I wasn?t sure I could win. Every time I would slowly pump the fish up towards the surface, he would turn and rush back towards the bottom. He leaped one time and we could see that it was a very large buck Chinook. I finally worked him to the surface and got him alongside the raft. We never took him out of the water, but estimated he was over 30 inches long and weighed around 27 lbs. I released him and he took off like he?d been shot from a canon, straight up river over the riffles.
I was done for the day, I had bruises on my knuckles from the reel, my arm, shoulder, and wrist hurt and I felt as if I had been arm wrestling with Sylvester Stallone, but I had a big, happy smile on my face. The final count for the day; seven steelhead, three salmon, and about 25 smolt?s. Not too bad.
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