The constant smoke in the air from all of the fires here in Northern California is downright depressing, and pretty unhealthy. Three wildfires have been lofting smoke and particles of ash into the atmosphere for over a month now. In the middle of September I expect to awake in the morning to a little coolness, and bright sunny conditions. Instead the current oppressive morning haze makes it feel like the middle of January without the rain. This makes me feel a I need to run, and find somewhere warm and sunny.
Back over to the Klamath River
I was over on the Klamath River near Weichpec for Labor Day a couple of weeks ago, and did find the climate, and air quality I expected. There are maybe a couple of hundred people spread through these wild Pacific coastal mountains, so It is really quiet too. I could actually hear people talking way up on the mountainside during the daylight hours, even though my old ears couldn’t hear what they were saying. I also found the river to have more half pounder steelhead 
than I had ever seen in it!
My fishing pal Don and I drove over to my favorite section of the Klamath River on a Wednesday afternoon. We arrived on the river bank about five in the evening to find a couple of guys out fishing the river seam I wanted to hit. This was pretty interesting to me, because I never see hardly another angler in this stretch let alone in the exact same spot I like. Oh well, put the waders on and get to it.
It is probably close to 40-50 yards of wading, to my targeted seam, of lightly cobbled river
bottom in water coming up to about the mid-thigh area on my short old legs. That depth is only for about 20 feet, and then it shallows to knee high for the rest of the wade. The water is moving, but with the river’s volume spread as much as it is, the current flow is really mellow, and easy to navigate with comfort.
I began at the up river end of the seam where it drops off into a deep pool behind a big rock. I had brought a nice adult steelhead to hand there over the Labor Day weekend. I changed tactics for this evening by using a weight forward floating Rio line with a weighted fly, I have had good success with, I call a Copper Infusion size #12. I usually use a mid sink Rio line, but opted for the floating line because the water is so shallow. The only fish I hooked were baby shad, and I mean baby, like two inches long lol! The young fellow below me was hooking one fish after the other the entire time I was hooking none. There were half pounders galore, as evidenced by the dozen, or so, fish this fellow brought to hand. They just weren’t hitting my stuff.
Don didn’t wade out where we were, but he did finally try a spot a little farther down the drift for a while, but by this time it was nearing time to leave and head back to town before it got too dark. It gets dark down in that canyon pretty early. The drive out to 96 in the dark was more than my friend could take. He was pretty rattled, so much so he didn’t want to go back down there on the following day.
The Trinity River
Don and I spent the night at the Tseywenaldin Inn in Hoopa. (the name sounds like; say-when-all-den). Don expressed strongly his reluctance to endure the drive down the Klamath the next morning. I had to figure out somewhere to go for us to fish that he would be comfortable with. The Trinity River is beautiful through Hoopa Valley, but were the fish there yet? I would take him to a couple of places and find out. These were places he had never fished, so I hoped he would be pleased.
The drift we began with is one of my favorites, and always do well when the fish are in. It is called Deep Sleep because there was an old motel there long ago. Don and I got out of the truck and, suited up. The first thing Don said about this place was, “Now this is a classic steelhead run”. He seemed pleased! Yay.
I had Don work down through the water first, hoping he would hook up, and I would follow. We didn’t even have so much as a peck, peck. Hmm, maybe the fish just aren’t here yet I told myself. In hind sight though, when there are no little fish pecking at the fly through this water, it usually means there are a couple of big fish in that area, and the fry, or smolt are afraid to move out to where they may be eaten. There may have been some adult fish holding there through the night, and moved on in the light, or still sitting down in deeper water.
We didn’t hook anything through Deep Sleep, so moved on down the river a ways to another really nice drift I don’t know the name of. It probably has a name too, but I don’t remember hearing anyone ever saying the name. I let Don begin at the top of the drift, and started about 100 yards down river. I had switched over to my spin casting outfit, because my friend at Phil’s Propellers gave me a spinner to try out and report back to him.
Whammo, second cast fish on! I ended with three half pounders brought to hand, and numerous misses during that half hour or so. The only thing about this spinner I would change is removing the treble hook, and attaching a single barbless hook. I ended messing up a fish, and had to take it home. Thank goodness it was an early hatchery fish. Anglers may only keep hatchery raised steelhead that have the adipose fin clipped before being released into the Trinity river.
Hoopa Valley Tribal Fisheries conducts a creel count during the fall months, and we were approached twice during our stay on this day. No need for alarm when these follows come to see how anglers are doing though. They are just collecting data about the method of angling, the fish caught, city of residence, and a couple of other things. The guys doing this data collection are very courteous, and really a wealth of knowledge about the state of the fishery if asked.
All in all Don and I had a really nice trip, even though it required a lot of driving. We spent the day on some of my favorite steelhead waters, and even caught a couple of fish. We managed to get out of the darn smoke for that duration too!
It has been a few weeks ago before the posting of this article. Sorry, I am a little slow, but it is now the first week of October, and the fish should be thick in the Trinity by now. I am going to try to get back over there in the morning, and figured I should complete this post first before researching more info for another post. Tomorrow should be a great day for this Mr Hook to be Ketchinnee!