Trinity River Fly Fishing Report

Dave Neal, Reel Adventures Guide Service

What a crazy week on the Trinity. Check out your FishHead app and look at that spike!! A good rain event blew out the lower river from Canyon Creek while Rush Creek, in Lewiston, did it’s best to dirty up the top… the key was being in the middle of it all when both were at their worst.

By Monday it was back to low and clear throughout much of the middle river around Douglas City. This river can endure a lot of rainfall and then clear up quickly. Steelheader’s in CA are lucky to have this amazing little river…

We’ve been getting good shots of rain periodically; resulting in above average rainfall totals, season to date. All this weather has the fish on the move and the hatchery cows moving through. The refresh button has been smacked down pretty hard with this last storm. We may start to see more winter (wild) fish moving up which will be great.

Fishing continues to be scratchy-to-good depending on the section of river, angler ability, and timing (luck) throughout the day. It’s not red-hot but it is steelhead fishing!!! Anglers covering water and fishing as many spots as possible are going to find a few adult fish, here and there. The fish are in there; but you just have to dig em out!

All colors of the famous Copper John, and stonefly patterns including rubber legs are getting attention. I have not done any swing trips lately, but we have fished the dry fly for halfies like I told you last week. Best decision I made the other morning was throwing in a spare rod, some parachute Adams, and my dry shake powder. Those abundant juvenile halfies in the river this season kick ass and rip pretty hard when you hook them on top… an exciting lunchtime diversion for us this week in between head hunting the bigger fish!