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We fished near Junction City today and found a good pod of fish. We went 3 for 7, hooking fish in four different runs. Our best flies were a poxyback hare's ear, olive size 8 and a red copper john size 14. Best of all, we only saw two other boats and three bank anglers. We saw more fish today than I've seen all year. It's feeling more and more fishy every day.
 Trinity River  Trinity River  Trinity River |
Today Gino and I took out Angie and Jen from the California Fly Shop. In the morning we focused on spey casting. We saw quite a few nice steelhead rolling in the Pigeon Point area. Jen & Angie did well learning the double-spey and even got grabbed a couple times. In the afternoon Gino took the gals on a float in the Junction City area - stay tuned for a report.
 Gino with the California Fly Shop ladies.  Angie throwing a great spey cast  Jen spey casting on the Trinity |
Today Gino and I took out a crew of four from the California Fly Shop. Manager Chris Barza was the hot rod of the day, landing one adult steelhead and hooking another. Both fish ate a brown rubberlegs size 8. We spent a lot of time swinging flies with our spey rods but without any grabs. We hooked quite a few half-pounders today, some up to 19.
 Trinity River  Another beautiful day on the Trinity River |
Here are a couple of big steelhead from my last two guide trips. Fishing is good!  Trinity River  Trinity River |
The fishing improved dramatically today. We did some wade fishing at the beginning of the day below Junction City, but to no avail. We then did a short float and took our time, really working over some of the best holes and riffles. The Junction City area was like a ghost town today. Pretty amazing for a Sunday, there were hardly any bank anglers and very few boats around. We hooked five adult steelhead and one nice half-pounder. The orange Pettis Unreal Egg was the ticket today. Brad and Doug from Red Bluff both landed a nice steelhead today.
 Trinity River |
I floated my clients through the canyon today. We landed one small wild buck steelhead near the top end of the drift and then went fishless. It was a beautiful day, but we saw very few fish and made a lot of great drifts that didn’t get grabbed.
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Fishing continues to be challenging, but we are getting good opportunities every day. We fished near Junction City today. There was a fair amount of boat traffic, but we got to fish most of the good spots. Our first hookup was brief – the fish ate the fly at the end of a seventy foot downstream drift and only stayed on for about five seconds. We landed the second fish we hooked, a nice 5# hen. Both fish ate a dark “Feather Duster” tungsten bead nymph, size 10.
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The weather and the fishing were much better today on the Lower Sac. We floated from Anderson to the gravel bar. The river is steadily dropping and should be down to 4000cfs by the 18th. The river is a little off-color but in a good way. We found fish throughout the float, with most coming on a chartreuse Morrish hot-wire caddis sized 16. We got some fish on eggs and small mayfly nymphs also. Pat from Redlands caught his first five trout on a fly rod today.
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Today was a very windy day. We floated through Redding and did a fair amount of wading. The fish weren’t really on the egg grab today, or maybe they weren’t on the grab at all. Most of our fish came on very small mayfly nymphs. We landed several small to medium fish, lost a huge rainbow over 20 inches, and landed a nice 18” bow just above the 44 bridge. Hopefully tomorrow won’t be so windy!
 Lower Sac |
We floated near Junction City today. Milt from Gridley caught a nice 5 pound hatchery steelhead. We also landed one half pounder about 16”. Traffic on the river was moderate. Water is still low and clear.
 Trinity River |
I decided to check out the upper river near Lewiston today. We started out with some great sight-fishing opportunities to some large steelhead. We nymphed to a particularly large steelie for a while before trying a large articulated egg-sucking leech. On our first drift the steelie gobbled the fly, but somehow we managed to miss the connection. That was our only steelhead opportunity of the day. We landed a brown about 15” and a couple of steelhead smolts.
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We fished through the canyon near Douglas City today. Don from Corte Madera landed a huge 9 pound hatchery buck and lost a smaller fish. The fish ate one of Don’s woven nymphs that were tied by the legendary Cal Bird. Very cool. Fishing conditions remain much the same. I only saw a couple of steelhead scatter as I rowed my boat. Flows are very low and the water is incredibly clear. It was a beautiful calm day and we had the river to ourselves.
 Trinity River |
Here are some photos from our spey clinic held this weekend on the Trinity River.
 Trinity River  Trinity River  Intrepid guides Gino Bernero and Jon Hazlett |
We got a late start today so we fished from Steel Bridge to Indian Creek. Chris from Los Gatos landed a great fish, a wild 8 pound buck, right at the put-in. We saw one good pod of fish at the top of the float, and not much down below. Traffic was pretty light for Veteran’s Day Weekend.
 Trinity River |
We did a split float today. We found one small wild buck between Sky Ranch and Junction City campground. Quite a few boats on this float today. In the afternoon we headed downriver and got away from all the traffic. We only saw one other boat and no bank anglers. We hooked two nice adult fish, but neither made it to the net. We also caught several halfpounders 10-15 inches.
 Trinity River |
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