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The Arborist
04-06-2015, 05:12 PM
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Bill Kiene semi-retired
04-06-2015, 05:24 PM
During the winter (Feb/March) during lower flows the Trinity River, like the Lower Yuba River, gets nice insect hatches that the steelhead and trout feed. on.

Many Valley rivers get insect hatches, especially in the winter and spring, during low flows.

Thanks......

The Arborist
04-06-2015, 06:00 PM
Thanks for the info Bill. We focused on the fly only water and had a great trip with lots of fish to net/hand. The first fly was hatching all day from about 11am till we walked off the river anywhere from 5-7pm. The only pattern I had in my box was a yellow-ish IOBO which worked great on the first half pounder who chewed it all up. Luckily, I had some tying materials with me and that evening I tied up a few size 14, but instead of using CDC, I only had dyed wood duck with me. I found a few small feathers and they worked like a charm. The yellow color was a closer match than my CDC tied fly I used earlier.

There wasn't a lot of surface action during the morning, but it picked up in the late afternoons and although the surface takes looked small, some of the fish we caught were in the 15-20" range. The water was real milky as well and they'd rise just a few feet away.

I only saw 2 skwalla flies over the 4 days (I believe that is the bug in the third pic). The one in this pic I saw swimming around my legs so I plucked her out and put her on my rod to get a pic before placing her on a nearby bush.

Pics 2 & 4 I'm not quite sure what they are, but they were around in the afternoons. Just not nearly in numbers like the yellow guy in pic 1.

johnb
04-06-2015, 06:21 PM
March Brown? I was on the Trinity Thurs-Sat, swinging a soft hackle I couldn't keep the little guys off my hook. Saw tons of surface action in almost every stretch between fly fishing only section and steel bridge rd.

pvsprme
04-07-2015, 01:14 PM
2 and 4 are Callibaetis, I believe. Pat Burton's Punk Rocker works well on these. # 1 a PMD?