Thursday, June 25, 2009

Steelhead anglers blessed to find the Trinity

Tom Stienstra, Chronicle Outdoors Writer
Thursday, November 4, 2004

The Trinity River canyon has turned into the steelhead capital of the Western U.S. in the past six weeks. Six inches of rain in late September followed by clear, cold weather this week seems to have put a steelhead behind every boulder in the upper river. This is the kind of phenomenon that can attract anglers of all kind; that is, those who fish from shore and those who fish by boat, those who use bait and those who use lures and flies. Many paths, one truth.

How to get there: Take I-5 to Redding and the exit for Highway 299 West. Take that exit and drive west on Highway 299 over Buckhorn Summit and continue to Douglas City, Junction City, or past Weaverville. Direct access is available along Highway 299 and spur roads.

Best spots: Steel Bridge (between Lewiston and Douglas City), Steiner Flat (short hike required), mouth of Canyon Creek at Junction City, downstream of Junction City, vicinity of confluence of North Fork Trinity, Hell Hole upstream of Big Bar.

see how our guests rate the Arttus Ranch!

What a wonderful, beautiful, special place. Nature is at my fingertips - the sound of the Trinity tumbling by, punctuated by the bleats of resident goats, and the many various birdcalls. Some rain, some sunshine, puffy white clouds and blue skies. The purple redbud in full springtime bloom. I leave here rested, recuperated, and renewed.

Coming from far way (Germany), we looked forward to spending 2 weeks in the middle of nature. Our expectations have been more than fulfilled. We really fell in love with the place, the house (carefully kept, very good equipment, in particular for cooking, the river, the sun and the stars.

Another year of fun fishing – no catches but we had a marvelous time. Really enjoyed staying here. Nicely equipped, and the six of us had a fun vacation.

Christmas in September was totally fun. Nice time was had by all of us, seven fantastic beautiful women on our annual get-away! The home was very comfortable and well-equipped, the house was filled with laughter and pure good spirit.

Nine days is not enough! Thank you so much for making your home available to us and our dogs. We fished in the Lewiston Lake Annual Fish Derby and won several gift certificates for local restaurants, boat rentals, etc., which, of course, we must use next year! Thank you again for such great accommodations and a wonderful time.

The ranch is a great vacation spot for a large extended family. The scenery is fabulous. I loved all the goats, especially the babies. The rushing river was gorgeous. We had a great vacation! Thanks

We had a great time on our vacation. A lot of swimming and blackberry eating.

fishing season on the Trinity River in Douglas City

Hi folks & welcome to the first post on The Arttus Ranch blog. I want to quote from an article in The Fishing Report, San Francisco Chronicle, June 25, 2009, on the beginning of the summer fishing season on the Trinity River:

The Fishing Report
Brian Hoffman
Thursday, June 25, 2009
It's worth it to go way up high, in that there is salmon fishing happening on the Klamath and Trinity rivers. Dave Jacobs, a guide, is dividing his professional time between the Sacramento River below Redding and the Trinity, where the spring-run kings are just pushing into the river. He's drifting Del Loma to Douglas City, and his clients generally are catching one to three salmon per day, these landed on sardine-wrapped Kwikfish in the morning, and bagged roe and tuna, side drifted, when the sun finds the water. The salmon are not large - 8 to 10 pounds - but they're in the river. ... The Sacramento River, below Redding, offers a nice combination of trout and shad fishing. A guy like Jacobs, a guide with a jet boat, can make it a day of catching both. He starts out fishing for the wild rainbows in the morning, gets anywhere from 25 to 40 hookups on side drifted GloBugs, then tails it downriver late morning for shad, which are stacked up at Los Molinos in a way the guide has not seen in five or six seasons...