Jan 9 - 15. Trinity River Report
Jan 15 ~ 11:30 am. The river is now half the size it was 24 hrs ago, currently at 2500 cfs. We’re still off color and Rush Creek and the other tribs are moving pretty good. If we get below 2000 cfs the current trend looks like it will be broken. The forecast is still holding for a drier period and it looks like there is no substantial rain in the next week. We are still expecting by Friday the upper stretch above the lodge may be in good condition. Our next report will most likely be on a new page.
Jan 14 - 1o pm. As we expected the river is trending down. What we didn’t expect was a new high of 5010 cfs which was not in our projections. Currently, we see very little rain moving forward except for a short increase on Wed 1/18. There is a lot of water needing to clear the tribs with a new high of over 5000 cfs. We’re looking for a late Friday, Saturday morning to check the upper float stretches. If you’ll be fishing those days, plan to have sunscreen and a good assortment of flies for clean and dirty water. The Fly Shop in Redding and the Trinity Fly Shop should easily have you covered. I wont be worrying about tippet size with the colored water. I’m also wondering if swinging flies might not be a great way to get a few hookups. If things continute to shape up in the forecasts, there’s no doubt the fish have moved up and it could be some very exciting days to come.
Jan 14 - 12 pm. We had a pretty good rainfall this morning and forecasts are now showing 1/10th of an inch remaining for today and no sizeable forecasted rain in the near future. The river is flowing strong at 4270 cfs currently. We should begin the downward trend in the next 24 to 48 hours.
Jan 13 - 8 pm. We finally have some good news. The Trinity did as we expected and bounced off the 2000 cfs again and headed up. Our reading at Douglas City right now is a little over 3000cfs. The color at the lodge does not look indicative of what we saw in prior highs and the current weather report shows less than an inch of rainfall each day moving forward. We can now start to look at precipitation percentages and Saturday appears to be a the beginning of a break in the rain. If the forecast continuest to hold, we expect the river to maintain a flow tomorrow above 2000 but begin a descending trend. The forecast shows minimal rain after Sunday night and skies beginning to clear. Here’s the big and exciting takeaway. On Thursday, if the forecast holds, we start into typical cooler nights hovering around freezing and daily highs in the mid 50’s. After Thursday, Jan 19th, we would expect the upper stretches to begin fishing again consistently. It may happen earlier because the forecast doesn’t show much in terms of precipitation. But it appears we have a break in the rain! If everything continues to improve we will keep updating the information. One more note, the river is temping warm for this time of year and the highest it has this winter. With nights clearing I would expect this to start moving back down but this is another great signal for new fish moving up river.
Jan 11 - 12 pm. Upper river near Douglas City just went under 2000 cfs for the first time in about a week. We still have heavy turbidity from the tribs which have come down a little but still not trending down. We’re expecting the rain to continue today and we may see a short break toomorrow. Fri & Sat still showing over an inch each day.
Jan 10 - 3pm. The Trinity at Douglas City is bouncing off what appears to be a new bottom flow just over 2000 cfs and we’re now back to tracking with the rise and fall of the small tributaries like Rush Creek. We haven’t seen any change in flows from the dam in the last day or so. I did take a drive up to the dam today because we were hearing reports of turbidity coming from the dam, and that is not the case. Deadwood creek was pumping pretty hard and causing most of the turbidity in the upper river. I did see a few boats and anglers in the upper stretches.
Deadwood Creek on the right flowing into the Trinity causing much of the turbidity in the upper stretch. There is no gauge, but it should track similar to Rush Cr guage.
Jan 10 - 3 pm (cont). The upper stretches looked really good above the tribs. We’re watching to see what happens on this next system moving through Wed - Sunday. Each day were showing precip around 1” in the region. That appears to be the mark of when we see heavy turbidity in the river.
Above bridge, below hatchery.
Jan 9 - 1:00 pm. Trinity near Douglas is currently at 4300 cfs and has been trending upwards most of the day. Water color is off and flows out of the dam are back to their typical 300-350 cfs. We’re getting turbid flows out of most of the creeks. Current forecasts are calling for 100% preceip on Tues & Wed. Latter part of the week shows rain but our forecasts predict 3/4 to 1/2 inch of rain each day. We’re expecting a little drop in the river and then another upward trend for Tues & Wed. We did hear of anglers up near lewiston finding some bright fish! Keep an eye on the streamflows and weather reports.
Current flows at Douglas City.
Current weather report for the week.