SHASTA CASCADE COMBINATION

I waded out and cast a three-fly nymph-and-egg rig under an indicator upstream from our launch point as guides Kris Kennedy and Bryan Quick of The Fly Shop in Redding, Calif., readied our raft for the float down a beautiful stretch of the Trinity River. Halfway through the run, the strike indicator plummeted and I quickly landed a small steelhead. That was an encouraging first cast in the tailwater fishery that flows from Trinity Lake downstream to Lewiston Lake and then from Lewiston Dam on to its confluence with the Klamath River at the town of Weitchpec.

We boarded the raft and began floating down an isolated 6-mile stretch of the Trinity. The entire 110-mile-long river is designated as wild and scenic, and flows through Shasta-Trinity National Forest and Six Rivers National Forest. The winding waterway has been going through an active habitat restoration program for several years that has brought back the greatest steelhead runs in decades, according to Kennedy.

Today, the Trinity River is arguably one of the finest steelhead waters in the West, and while it has a good king salmon run, the local guides target steelhead from