My son, David, and I made a trip to fish the Trinity this weekend. I had attempted to make arrangements to meet a couple of NCFFBers for this weekend’s fishing, but had been unsuccessful, so David and I headed up, just the two of us. David had to work Friday night, so we could not leave until Saturday morning. The 2:00 wake-up alarm came WAY too early, especially since I had been up until midnight tying flies. I woke up David, and we loaded the car and hit the road by 2:20. It is normally a four and a half hour drive from Ripon to Weaverville, but today I would pay for my late night. I had to stop at least four times (I’m not sure I remember all of the stops
) to catch a few Zs (~15 minutes per stop) as I kept nodding off at the wheel. We didn’t get to the river until almost 8:00.
The first thing we discovered is that there had been a LOT of rain, and the river was a little off-color. We had heard that the river was like chocolate below North Fork, and that the fish were definitely on the move up-river, so we concentrated on the Douglas City area.
Here is what the river looked like when we arrived
Our first stop for fishing (and reflection on one of NCFFB’s best) was Hud’s Riffle. This was the first time I had been to the riffle since the sign was placed, and I spent a fair amount of time attempting to locate it in the trees on the other side, to no avail. I rested in the knowledge that it was there, and the extraordinary nature of this spot remained our (NCFFB’s) secret. Since this was David’s first time steelheading, we took some time to work on technique. David, 18, is already a good nymph fisher, so the transition was pretty easy. We primarily used small foam indicators, but on occasion, David particularly would do a tight-line swing method that covered the water well. I worked the upper part of the riffle, and David the lower. David said he saw several fish break the surface, but I did not see any, nor did we get any grabs or hook-ups. It was fairly cold, and we fished for as long as we could feel our fingertips. Hud’s Riffle is pretty much in the shade for the entire day due to it’s situation in a deep canyon.
Here’s a picture of the trees that hide the sign at Hud’s Riffle.
We decided we needed some food and drink (hey, we’d been up for over seven hours already!), so we made some sandwiches and ate them while we drove back upstream to fish another location. We stopped at a large gravel bar to do some scouting, but there was no obvious sign of fish.
David on the Gravel Bar
On a previous tip, we headed to Douglas City campground. We walked down to the water without our rods, to check things out. Right at the end of the trail was a really nice run with two fly fishers in it, one at the head using and indicator, the other at the tail swinging flies. We watched for a while and started to go when one of the fellows said “how’s it going, guys”. I introduced myself, and it turned out that it was Napa Dave from the NCFFB. He introduced us to his friend, Larry, and we talked for a while about the lack of fish. We told him we had seen a few fish roll in Hud’s riffle, so we loaded up and headed back down there. Again, we got no fish.
Larry and David at Hud’s Riffle
Dave and Larry had had a plan to head up toward Lewiston, so we decided we would try that out. We headed toward Bucktail, and stopped for a look-see at a place near Indian Creek. There was another fellow in the spot we were going to try, but we were really amazed at all of the “work” that had been done in that vicinity. Apparently, the habitat restoration work that is being done on the T in various places needs to have a lot of gravel, and the restorers chose the gravel bar on the far (north) side of this area to collect it. The work did not appear to affect the runs in the area, however.
Dave working a run where he had a large fish follow his dry
Larry working a nice riffle
We fished at Bucktail for a while with no results, and David and I decided to go make camp. We made plans to meet again in the early spring, and bid Dave and Larry goodbye and headed on our way to Steiner Flat.
Once we got camp set up and our sleeping bags rolled out and lofting, we fished for a while at one of the runs near the campground, and then we headed to town for some dinner and junk food, then headed back and hit the sack by 8:30.
David and I needed to leave for home no later than noon, so we determined that since there were no fish in the upper river area, we would head down to Dutch Creek/Evans Bar area to see if the fish had made it that far. We were heading out of the campground when we (almost literally) ran into Salman, coming into the campground.
We hit the same run we fished the evening before with no positive results. We did note that the river had cleared up nicely in the night.
Salman asked if we had hit a certain run in the area to which we replied no, because there were others fishing it when we checked it out. We decided to head down to check it out, and as we were walking down to the run, we saw another angler headed our way. It turned out to be Jonesy, an NCFFBer from way back. He had gotten just two grabs, but managed to hook up on one of them and landed a ~25” hatchery hen. We talked for a while about the state of the river and fishing and then Jonesy left as he had to head for home.
We spread out along the run, with me at the top, Salman in the middle, and David at the lower end. Within four or five casts I had a fish on! I only played it for 10 or 20 second before it made a run right toward me. While taking up slack, I got my rod on the upstream side of the fish and it came unbuttoned. Darn rookie mistake! I got a look at the fish when it flashed and it appeared to be similar in size to Jonesy’s fish.
We fished for a while longer, with a few grabs but no hookups, and then it was time to hit the road.
Salman at the final riffle
View of Shasta out the back window of the car on the way out of town
All in all it was a great weekend, although a bit devoid of fish. The steelies are just not yet in the upper river in decent numbers. If you are going, head downstream.
And while we were a little disappointed to have been heading up without other friends to fish with, happily, the NCFFB connections really paid off. That is one of the coolest things about this board, that you can run into people all over the N state area and ask, “do you read the NCFFB?”. More often than not, you will get a positive answer.
Looking forward to getting back up there in a few weeks. Perhaps we will run into some of you then!
Buzz
Favoured: 0
. It's been a while since I have been able to do that. They get so busy once they get to the working age but it gets close to impossible once they get married 
