Trinity River Fly Fishing Report

Dave Neal, Reel Adventures Guide Service

Big change this past week has been the COLD weather!! Ice-in-the-guides cold. It may not be worth getting out at the crack o’ dawn-thirty?

Just prior to the cold snap we were seeing plenty of aggressive fish attacking swung flies. I took a day off and “fun fished” with my buddy AC and got lucky enough to connect with two nice wild fish on back-to-back casts - swinging a black leech on a “light” tip. With the exception of the last few days, this winter has been very mild – so get out there with your dbl hander and see what happens.

The river has been on a slow steady drop for over a week now. The water cleared up fast - but the last two days (for some reason) it has some color in it. Some people have said it’s from a mudslide somewhere? It may just be turbidity from the lakes? Whatever the reason, I like it. Despite the off color water we hooked nearly all of our fish yesterday on small nymphs like #14 PT’s, Copper John’s, Psycho Princes and smaller stonefly patterns.

I’ve been fishing the Douglas City and Junction City areas for the most part this week. Some days we get lucky and find good numbers of adult fish, while other days we go long hours before finding a fish here or there. One trip recently we hooked a bunch of super hot fresh steelhead all in the last hour of our day… you need to fish hard and be persistent. The fish are here, you just need to find the players.

I’ve been seeing all wild fish and a lot of smaller 21”-24” fish these past few weeks (at least in the middle/upper river from Pigeon Point to Douglas City).

 With the coastal rivers coming into shape, many steelhead anglers will be heading west for the big pull. This usually means fewer crowds on the Trinity.

 My available upcoming dates are: January 15,16, 21 February 10-13, 17-19, 25-27.