Trinity River Browns

[JT]

I landed a brown in the Lower American about a month ago. At first I thought it was a squawfish because of the color. It was just shy of 20" long.

[BigOkieWhiteBoy916]

I landed a brown in the Lower American about a month ago. At first I thought it was a squawfish because of the color. It was just shy of 20" long.

You're so full of it! lol j/k

[Fats]

Last winter I picked up a pair of browns on the Trinity on a steelhead trip. They would have been nice fish on my trout rigs... the steelhead rod made short work of them.

No monsters...

[Tony Buzolich]

A few years back I was returning from a day on the river and passed through the town of Lewiston. As I crossed over the bridge in town I saw several fish rising and thought I'd give it a few more casts before heading back to Redding. I parked almost under the bridge in a very public area and made only a couple of casts before hooking up. Several people came down to watch the show as I played the fish in. As I was fishing steelhead all day I was expecting steelhead again. This fish was in the 3-4 pound range, bright silver like all of the other fresh steelhead, but this one had the classic red spots with halo on both sides.

Right away a couple of people said "that's a sea-run brown". I quickly took a few pictures and turned her loose.

Now, if I can just find those old pre-digital pics I'll show you what I caught.

TONY

[BigOkieWhiteBoy916]

I picked up a few nice Browns around Junction City last week. Definitely not sea run though

[TomV]

I caught several nice Browns on the Trinity last year, but this one had much different coloring, a silver tone and a more streamlined shape. I was thinking it could be a sea run brown?

[TaylerW]

big fish man. id love to get into that

[pvsprme]

I caught several nice Browns on the Trinity last year, but this one had much different coloring, a silver tone and a more streamlined shape. I was thinking it could be a sea run brown?

That's what I'm talking about. Just got back from a week up there and no browns, but I did talk at length with Kit, Herb Burton's guide. He agrees with the potadromous description and also thinks there are a few truly anadromous fish, less than in the 70's and 80's, but still a population. What drove my question initially is an experience up by Lewiston in mid-October; to be brief, I was upstream nymphing (no bobber, thank you) a piece of classic brown water and hooked a toad. I had about 30 feet of slack in my off hand and initially thought I'd hooked the bottom. Moving upstream to get a different angle on the obstruction, it started shaking its head and then moved downstream. I'd slipped out all but a few feet of the slack line and almost had him on the reel when he surfaced and rolled; definite Brown but with a silvery tint. I got so excited I pinched down with my rod hand index finger that I was slipping the line with and it popped 2X like it were 5 or 6X. The fished rolled 3X in front of my wife who was about 100' downstream and she got a good look at it. She confirmed the siver sheen and said it was bigger than most of the beat-up spawning salmon in the river. I'd guess it at 12-15 lbs. easy.
Such are dreams made of.