Trip Overview
For the long weekend of Juneteenth, my wife and I headed up to the Trinity Alps, which are a small mountain wilderness west of Redding. We had not been to any of the area, so the long weekend was a perfect opportunity to go somewhere we would otherwise not have the chance to go to. The first night, since we arrived later in the day and it was nearing dark, we stayed at a hipcamp along highway 299, off of the Lewiston Turnpike road. The next morning, we were greeted with a beautiful view of the tall hills surrounding the site, and Edna (dog) loved being able to explore and roam around the site. There was nobody else around, so we got to enjoy a little bit of solitude together before heading out to Weaverville. Next, we headed over to the “Bridge Camp”, which is one of the many trailhead/campsites that allow access into the Trinity Alps. The campsite is right along the Sturt Fork of the Trinity river, so provided a great opportunity to fish in the downtime. That day, we went on a 12 mile hike with the dog, which wore her out completely, and once we returned to the campsite, I went down to fish. It was very successful, and that night, we had trout for dinner! The next day I ended up fishing some more, and then we set out to drive to the Trinity resevoir, which had some beautiful lookouts. Finally, we ended the trip with a swim session with the dog in Lewiston lake.
The Fishing
I fished a few different times, all in approxiamately the same area on the Stuart Fork. There’s a trail that extends along the river, which provides good access to all sorts of terrain. The first zone I fish was the Euro Zone below, which was a small rapid that flowed into a slower, pebble-to-cobble sized run. All along this run was cover that fish could hide under, and there were some boulders that provided shelter from the current. I worked my way down the run, starting from the very top where on the second drift through the rapid outlet, I hooked a fish! I ended up losing that first fish, but it didn’t take long for the second one to take interest in my fly. This first time, I only was fishing for 45 minutes, but within that span, I was able to catch 3 fish. The last of those fish was big enough to pull drag on my rod, and put up a good fight for a few minutes. These fish were pretty energetic, and put on a show with jumps, etc. From a strategy perspective, I found that most of the fish at that time of day (around 10-11am) were congregated around the far shore, which was the shaded side. The bottom was pretty variable in terms of depth, so getting a good drift was challenging at times.
Next, once we returned from our hike, I went down to fish again to see if we could catch something for dinner. However, this time, the same section that was productive when I first went out, no longer had that many hungry fish. I saw a few flashes from rejections, and had one or two takes, but nothing landed in the net. Once I tried the more active riffle that started the slower run, I was able to catch a decent size eating fish. After 2 hours of not really getting good results, my wife came down to find me, and also informed me that the large pool that kids had been fishing at earlier was now free (this area referred as streamer/dry zone below). This pool provided a good area for me to work on my mending and drift skills with dries, but none of the rising fish had any interest in my elk hair caddis, nor a small mosquito fly. They were interested instead with the olive wooley bugger that I tied on, and once I started to throw that out, I hooked and landed a couple good sized fish, one of which we kept to eat. That night, I cooked them in a simple pan fry with salt, and they turned out delicious. Edna even got to try some, which she loved. The next morning, I went back down to the pool, which was right below our campsite, and fished for another hour and a half, in which I was able to catch another 6 fish. They still didn’t go for the dries (my drifts were probably not good) but they did go for the streamers and some bobber nymphs as well. I did notice that after catching a few of them from the pool using a certain fly, they became wary of that particular presentation quickly. Once they were wary, I could see them follow and then reject. So, the moral is: Follow Trout by Bergman. Switch it up!
Euro Zone:
Streamer/Dry Zone: