a little trinity advice

[Grampa Spey]

Each individual guide has to be licensed/approved by the Feds.

Monday started out great, and then the NW Monsoon settled in for the rest of the day. The fish went under and stayed.

Tuesday was better with the best fish caught from shore.

Forget any fly with the exception of beads that look like Salmon eggs. Also, if you don't use an indicator even with beads, you can practice casting, but that is it.

The closing of the Ocean Salmon to fishing has resulted in a massive number of salmon coming upstream to lay their eggs. That means the river is loaded with large and easy fast food, salmon eggs for the steelies.

So the Steelies aren't wasting their energy/time on little Trinity Nymphs. They are going for the easy/fast/big meal of salmon eggs. My guide must tried a 100 various flies with zero results below the bead in two days with nothing happening. That was replicated by other guides.

As of Tuesday, the hatchery steelies still weren't in the picture.

Every fish we hooked and released or saw hooked and released were big and very powerful Natives. According to the guide I had and others I talked to, the small native steelie "ain't " been around the last two season.

I had my butt handed to me with my Meiser 5/6 Switch rod by the big Trinity Natives.

The rod du jour for the fly shop guys taking a busman's holiday was the Sage Z7110 with a Rio 9/10 Steelhead Line. Even with this rod and a Sage 3600, it took me over 10 minutes to land a really great native from the shore. If I go up again, the Meise Switch will be my backup rod, and my Z7110 will be the main stick.

Kudos to the great young Hoopa Indians out marking salmon reds, doing fish counts and other tasks. The ones we talked to were very friendly and dedicated young men.

Everyone, alittle advice when going to the Trinity this year……….don’t forget that license, Fill out that steelhead card before you hit the river, and crimp those hooks !!! I have a feeling the cotton balls could be out this year. I was up there on the 25th and was approached by fish and game on two consecutive days. They are getting in boats, driving into put-in and take-out areas, walking the river and next might be helicopters ( just kidding ).
We had a 1 day guided trip and two days using my boat. Very slow fishing. The rain should help. Anyway, according to many locals there are too many guides with boats fishing the river without tags. You have to pay and register your boat if you’re guiding on the trinity. They issued 80 something tags for this year. Last year was forty. They turned down another 100 applications. The compliant is, you can get 15 boats on one 4-6 mile run, plus walk-ins and you have a ZOO. So they are cracking down. If you pay for a guided boat trip make sure your guide is registered to guide that river. The ones without tags can claim that they are just out with friends, but who wants to pay money to be told half way down the river were just buddies fishing when fish and game shows up. Also if a local guide sees a boat that looks guided without tags they will call it in. If you own a boat makes sure your trailer has a license and lights and signals work. We saw a guy pulled over in Weaverville at the Tops market by highway patrol and he was going to tow his boat because he had no license plate or tags. This was all in 3 days. You can’t make this stuff up. I am not trying to scare anyone. I just got the distinct impression that the Trinity is going to be “by the book” this year. Anyway just my two cents, food for thought and debate.

[jhaquett]

Thanks for the info.

[SHigSpeed]

Each individual guide has to be licensed/approved by the Feds.

Monday started out great, and then the NW Monsoon settled in for the rest of the day. The fish went under and stayed.

Tuesday was better with the best fish caught from shore.

Forget any fly with the exception of beads that look like Salmon eggs. Also, if you don't use an indicator even with beads, you can practice casting, but that is it.

The closing of the Ocean Salmon to fishing has resulted in a massive number of salmon coming upstream to lay their eggs. That means the river is loaded with large and easy fast food, salmon eggs for the steelies.

So the Steelies aren't wasting their energy/time on little Trinity Nymphs. They are going for the easy/fast/big meal of salmon eggs. My guide must tried a 100 various flies with zero results below the bead in two days with nothing happening. That was replicated by other guides.

As of Tuesday, the hatchery steelies still weren't in the picture.

Every fish we hooked and released or saw hooked and released were big and very powerful Natives. According to the guide I had and others I talked to, the small native steelie "ain't " been around the last two season.

I had my butt handed to me with my Meiser 5/6 Switch rod by the big Trinity Natives.

The rod du jour for the fly shop guys taking a busman's holiday was the Sage Z7110 with a Rio 9/10 Steelhead Line. Even with this rod and a Sage 3600, it took me over 10 minutes to land a really great native from the shore. If I go up again, the Meise Switch will be my backup rod, and my Z7110 will be the main stick.

Kudos to the great young Hoopla Indians out marking salmon reds, doing fish counts and other tasks. The ones we talked to were very friendly and dedicated young men.

Thanks for the great report!

BTW, that's "Hoopa". Hoopla is something completely different...

_SHig

[Grampa Spey]

I made the edit change.

One thing I left out was this.

Ca F&G is advising the guides to harvest hatchery fish when they show up. They expect a massive run and want fishers who eat hatchery fish to make the harvest with hatchery fish.

My wife, who was a bear in her previous life could eat salmon, steelhead and trout everyday had heard about harvesting hatchery steelies from one of her patients. I was informed by her to ask my guide.

Her patient and she were correct. The hatchery steelies just weren't there yet.

Tuesday, we saw some wading fishers catching fish. Trinity fishers are so funny. When asked what they were catching the fish with, the reply was a copper john or some small nymph. Yet when we saw a fish being unhooked, the beads were obvious then or in the air during a cast.

People, who have the time and resources to make a Trinity run next week should have a great time. The Trinity was one of the best steelhead rivers last year, and this year looks good if not better.

[speyfool]

Each individual guide has to be licensed/approved by the Feds.

Monday started out great, and then the NW Monsoon settled in for the rest of the day. The fish went under and stayed.

Tuesday was better with the best fish caught from shore.

Forget any fly with the exception of beads that look like Salmon eggs. Also, if you don't use an indicator even with beads, you can practice casting, but that is it.

Boy, I was on the Trinity Monday and Tuesday and that wasn't my experience at all. I was in the Del Loma to JC area and caught a dozen or so fish on the two days. They were all caught swinging or dead drifting (without indicators) soft hackles and hair wing steel head flies. All wading, no boating on my trip.

go figure.

[Terry Thomas]

If you check out the B.L.M. site you will see that each guide has their own permit #. There are several guides listed from The Fly Shop and they all have their own permits. Perhaps, a real important question to ask is, "How many permits can the Trinity River handle?" By my count, the B.L.M. has issued 79 permits. I sure wouldn't want to be on that river when most of them decided to take a client out. And of course, this doesn't count the private boaters that also use the river. It's like going to the deli, "Ticket please!"

[wjorg]

Grandpa Spey works for troutbeads.com? only kidding....

dammit, my beads didnt work this weekend. Or my pettis unreal eggs....(hehe)


Where are the BLM rangers? Ive been there like 12 weekends this year so far and have yet to see one...........

[bubzilla]

A buddy that lives on the North Coast (Eureka area) told me this week that he had heard at the local fly shop that supposedly there is some issue with the closure of the salmon season and the commercial fisherman now having an impact on the Trinity steelhead run as a result? Anyone else hear this?

[Grampa Spey]

So I went to the BLM web-site to check on the guide I'm fishing with next week and and luckily he is on the list. Here is the web-site if anyone wants to verify their guide in the future: http://www.blm.gov/ca/st/en/fo/reddi...fishguide.html

Thanks for this link, I eliminated one not of the list and confirmed one recommended to me:

http://www.blm.gov/ca/st/en/fo/reddi...fishguide.html

[pvsprme]

"Forget any fly with the exception of beads that look like Salmon eggs. Also, if you don't use an indicator even with beads, you can practice casting, but that is it."

Boy, I was on the Trinity Monday and Tuesday and that wasn't my experience at all. I was in the Del Loma to JC area and caught a dozen or so fish on the two days. They were all caught swinging or dead drifting (without indicators) soft hackles and hair wing steel head flies. All wading, no boating on my trip.

go figure.

I guess that just goes to prove the old axiom "there are no guarantees in fishing". I spent the week of Nov 8-14th in the Lewiston area. The consensus was the hatchery return was 15% of last year, same dates. There were more fish in the J-City to Deloma (sp?), but also exponentially more fisherman. I elected to stay near Lewiston, rather than fight the crowds. Last year it was easy to get 3-4 fish/day. This year I worked my butt off for 1 grab/day. Met Ty, a guide from the Trinity Fly Shop in Lewiston, who only swings;"the last time I used a bobber, it had Pautzkees under it". He was really having to "dig 'em out", using #10 Golden Stone or BH Woolys on the swing. I tried both methods; one hook-up on a dead-drifted glo-bug. That fish immediately broke the surface with a double cartwheel and popped 2X tippet like it was 7X before I could react. It was hot. Swinging paid off for me; best pattern was a # 14 orange/yellow BH Psycho Prince trailing an 8 or 10 wet-hackle pattern (Peking Caddis or Hare's Ear) that I wanted to simulated the big caddis that were coming off. There was a secondary hatch of #14-18 caddis as well as PMD or Isonychia (sp?) as well. The fish were busting 'em, but I was unsuccesful in efforts to skate one up. Most fish were hooked as the swing started to straighten out the "J" or on the hang.

My point is; there are no absolutes, what works for you may not work for me.
The attached photo is my only keeper; it took the #14 PP, if you can zoom in it's in the lower front lip, right where she took it.