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Home › Waters › California › Trinity River
River · Northern California, in the Trinity Alps country below Lewiston, running west past Douglas City and Junction City toward the Klamath confluence at Weitchpec · California

Trinity River Fishing Guides

Northern California's great steelhead river, running cold out of the Trinity Alps with a restoration program rebuilding the salmon runs behind it.

A clear river running through deep green rainforest in the Pacific Northwest
Gauge location. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Guides on the Trinity River

Claimed profiles take booking requests. Unclaimed profiles are built from public records so the river is never empty; the guide can claim or remove one any time.

About the Trinity River

The Trinity is the steelhead river that northern California anglers organise their winters around. It runs out of the Trinity Alps, gets its flow discipline from Lewiston Dam upstream, and then works west through a canyon and valley corridor that the Highway 299 route follows most of the way. The Douglas City reach where the gauge sits is squarely in the heart of the guided water, and drift boats work this section from fall through spring in numbers that make it one of the busier steelhead fisheries in the state.

Steelhead are the reason people come. The fall run arrives from roughly September and builds through the winter, with fish spread through the system by the turn of the year. They are not enormous by British Columbia standards but they are willing, they take swung flies and side-drifted bait alike, and there are enough of them in a good year to make a day genuinely productive rather than merely hopeful. Chinook run in the fall and provide a heavier, earlier fishery. Coho are present but protected and must be released.

What makes the Trinity unusual is the restoration program behind it. Water was diverted out of this basin to the Central Valley for decades, and the Trinity River Restoration Program has spent years rebuilding channel structure, adding gravel and managing flow releases specifically to recreate the conditions salmon and steelhead need. Anglers see the results as engineered riffles and side channels through the upper river. It is one of the more ambitious river restoration efforts in the West and it is visible from the boat.

Flows are managed rather than natural, and release changes from Lewiston can reshape a day’s fishing. Check the schedule as well as the gauge. Regulations on this river are detailed and change by reach and by season, with low-flow closures, gear restrictions and hatchery-only retention rules all in play, so read the current rulebook carefully before fishing.

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  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

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Never published. We use it only if we need to ask about the photo.

Posting to Trinity River.

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB. We resize it and strip the location data out of the file.

The name shown under the photo. Leave blank to stay anonymous.

Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Flow alert

Tell me when the Trinity River cfs

Now: 375 cfs, read 2:00 am CDT, Thu Oct 22, 2026 (USGS 11525854, TRINITY R A DOUGLAS CITY CA).

We never use this address for anything else and never share it. See the privacy policy.

Access

Douglas City - the gauge reach and a standard drift boat launch.
Junction City - the main launch on the middle river.
Lewiston - the top of the fishable reach below the dam.
Steiner Flat - developed river access and campground below Douglas City.
Steel Bridge - popular access and launch on the upper river.
Big Flat - lower river access off Highway 299.
Willow Creek - the bottom of the guided water toward the Klamath confluence.

Seasons

Spring: spring steelhead and the tail of the winter run, with flows dropping through May.
Summer: quiet on the lower river, with trout fishing in the cold water below Lewiston.
Fall: chinook arrive, the fall steelhead run builds and the guided season opens in earnest.
Winter: the core steelhead season, weather-dependent but the most productive months.

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Questions

What is the current flow on the Trinity River?

As of Oct 22, 2:00 am, the USGS gauge TRINITY R A DOUGLAS CITY CA reads 375 cfs, the 76th percentile for this date, with water temperature 52.5 F. Conditions update every 15 minutes.

What species can you catch on the Trinity River?

Anglers target Brown Trout, Chinook Salmon, Coho Salmon, Green Sturgeon, Rainbow Trout, Steelhead on the Trinity River in California.

Are there fishing guides on the Trinity River?

GuidedFloats lists 1 guide and outfitters on the Trinity River. Claimed profiles accept booking requests; unclaimed profiles are built from public records and link to the business.

Where can you access the Trinity River?

Douglas City - the gauge reach and a standard drift boat launch. Junction City - the main launch on the middle river. Lewiston - the top of the fishable reach below the dam. Steiner Flat - developed river access and campground below Douglas City. Steel Bridge - popular access and launch on the upper river. Big Flat - lower river access off Highway 299. Willow Creek - the bottom of the guided water toward the Klamath confluence.

When is the best time to fish the Trinity River?

Spring: spring steelhead and the tail of the winter run, with flows dropping through May. Summer: quiet on the lower river, with trout fishing in the cold water below Lewiston. Fall: chinook arrive, the fall steelhead run builds and the guided season opens in earnest. Winter: the core steelhead season, weather-dependent but the most productive months.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Trinity River?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the California agency site: https://wildlife.ca.gov/Regulations