Trinity River Photo Report

[Adam Grace]

Last weekend I joined up with our very own MSP (Mike) and a couple of his buddies to try our luck on the Trinity.....it turns out that we totally forgot our luck back at our houses because nobody landed a single adult, in fact only two were hooked out of 4.5 days for Mike and his friends, 2.5 days for me. I hooked one adult and it got off after a fun series of jumps and runs, it shook the hook out while thrashing around at the surface in the slow water of a pool. Brian, also hooked and lost an adult. Thankfully that group of guys was very fun to hang out with, that way the trip wasn't heavily tainted by the foul stench of skunk.

The first day I arrived it rained and poured on us the whole day and I only got a chance to take a few pictures.

Here are some pictures from my new 17-50mm Tamron lens, which I am pleased with.


Mike and His dog Elliot (AKA Dog Boy) fishing in the rain the first morning when I arrived. The Fall colors have started to change but they have not fully changed yet.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3035/2930562026_c7f9d579dd.jpg



Mike's old friend Brian fishing amongst the Trinity's beautiful Fall colors.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3290/2932135042_2f4f48f30f.jpg



I even got a few artsy shots in before the down-pour started, causing me to get my camera out of the rain. Here's on of those shots:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3219/2929703867_f5023a740a.jpg


Luckily for me the second day offered much better weather to bring out my camera and have fun taking pictures. And since the fishing was soo slow I had more time to spare to play around and take a bunch of pictures. The rain was intermittent and the cloud cover offered some very nice diffused light, perfect for taking pictures. I took over 400 pictures this trip, way less than I expected to. Here's a sample of pictures from that day.



Mike's buddy, Rich, after some heavy editing to bring out the clouds in the background.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3030/2929704459_762180ba5f.jpg



Mike's buddy, Brian, fishing the beautiful Trinity.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3071/2930561944_4f6718323e.jpg



Mike fishing by "his" rock.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3246/2925119836_a36166ae66.jpg


And of course this photo report would be incomplete if I didn't post pictures of our group's mascot: "Dog Boy."


Here's a fun shot of Dog Boy

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3288/2925117920_510f86f838.jpg


Here's a hilarious shot of Dog Boy in action.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3208/2925546153_7d17abaf5d.jpg




Luckily Rich caught and landed the only reasonable fish worthy of a picture was this small half-pounder that rich caught.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3218/2925121970_b088100bd1.jpg



During the first day of my trip we noticed a bunch of Isonychia mayflies emerging, but unfortunately it was raining too hard to break out the camera to get pictures of them emerging. Luckily the second day I got a chance to test the macro capabilities of my new lens. I'm pretty satisfied with what the new lens produced:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3191/2929703919_4718057dbf.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3249/2925558001_f80379063a.jpg



After taking some close up shots of mayflies I decided to play around with taking product style artsy pictures of my gear.

Let's start this off with the obligatory shot of a Kiene's hat.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3293/2925558017_50ff3af899.jpg



My single-handed seven weight rod and cool Waterworks reel.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3183/2932224150_a37247f895.jpg



My spey rod in the water.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3137/2929704395_d067808206.jpg



Here's a few other spey rod/reel shots:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3060/2930562340_b9eac46bc3.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3147/2930562454_2329c38abf.jpg



Here's a few shots of the guys:

Three old friends, Mike, Brian, and Rich.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3173/2930563020_00de394c11.jpg



http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3031/2930562970_6b8945379a.jpg



Me with Rich, Mike and of course Dog Boy. (Too bad Brian isn't in the shot, but thanks to him for taking the picture, as I am usually the trip photographer I do not have very many pictures of myself without a fish in my hands.)

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3050/2930563086_bd66f6d653.jpg



Here's a nice shot of me, taken by Brian, with Rich fishing in the back ground.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3218/2930562636_f7ba1af25e.jpg


I had a great trip, even with the lack of cooperation of the steelhead. I made some new friends, drank some alcohol, played some cribbage, tied some flies and fished amongst the beautiful scenery of the Trinity in the Fall.


(Unfortunately I can only restrict this post to ONLY 20 pictures. I will post more on a reply right below this post.)

[Adam Grace]

Here’s some more pictures from that second day:

A spider style fly tied the night before, color suggestion offered by Brian, a bunch of gin and tonics later, voila!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3064/2930562522_0cc7549f42.jpg


Another shot of my spey reel:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3201/2930562390_878818a875.jpg


Here is Dog Boy being friendly.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3235/2925118146_057273da3c.jpg


Here's a few shots of Rich and Brian that I forgot to post in the first report:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3229/2929704195_8ccca20b68.jpg


Here's a funny shot of those guys:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3205/2930562568_c551bc39a6.jpg



Here's a pic of Mike fishing:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3269/2929704503_97ffe524e3.jpg


Here's another macro shot of an Isonychia adult:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3232/2924269161_51bb0c49c8.jpg



Here's a few other artsy shots left out of the original post:

Fisherman's point of view:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3145/2925120390_baa05c95a1.jpg


A point of view from the rod tip:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3235/2925546147_6b669abde0.jpg


Selecting a fly:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3032/2925557995_491e636126.jpg



First morning landscape:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3056/2924266849_2657c8ab2c.jpg


Here's one of many lil shakers that we were actually able to catch:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3250/2931498093_45b5910191.jpg



Thanks for checking out my pictures maybe later I'll post a few more but taking into account the time required to slightly edit/adjust these pictures and then upload them onto the internet, then taking the time to format them into a post with text takes up a bunch of time and I am now tired of the process.....but I really wanted to share the pictures with you guys.

Hopefully you enjoyed some of the pictures.

[Dark Wader]

thanks for the "HD" pictures and the hard work. Your post reminded me the quality of the http://www.globalflyfisher.com

[Rick J]

great photos Adam - too bad the fishing was not better but that seems to be the name of the game this season so far on the Klamath and the Trinity - seems like runs are signficantly off.

But if it was just about catching fish, well.... Seems like you guys had fun and fish are just an extra.

My friend Bruce had to take his jet boat up north to Roseburg to get repaired and stopped off for a day+ on the North Umpqua and he was lucky enough to catch a nice 8# wild fish and had one other grab so good for the NU.

He and I may head up that way in a couple of weeks when his boat is ready.

[Adam Grace]

Good luck with your next trip Rick, I hope you guys land more fish than we did :)

[TMS]

Hey Adam...Yup, Dog Boy looks like he's having fun! The photos sure do "sell" the Trinity. Nothing beats a trip with friends. Thanks for sharing.

Later...

Thom

[pgw]

Thanks for the report, it's good to see folks using flies and equipment other than bobbers on the T.

Paul

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

This is the time of year to get them swinging flies.....before it get's to darn cold up there.

[Adam Grace]

Here's another landscape from that trip.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3063/2945248685_b1eaf9f52c.jpg

I still have more photos that I want to share with you guys but I need some more free time to get to them.

[Adam Grace]

I forgot to post this picture:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3150/2946879781_9bb7112ca3.jpg

I am also working on some HDR landscapes of the Trinity that I will hopefully be able to post sometime soon.