Russian River kayak drift - Feb. 25 & 26, 2006 (PICS)

Way 2 go Joel...

That small hatchery fish looks like a planted rainbow....Looked like bait!!!

You know I am just jeleous....

those are some very pretty smallmouth bass.

DAY 2 PHOTOS:

Mike's native steel head....you can tell it's a native by the presence of the andipose fin on Mike's left thumb.

and the release....

about a quarter mile from the launch site, we had to carry our yaks over this fish ladder.....

Mike attempts to fish the ladder for an easy limit  (Sean's secret spot )

Mike leading the way...

John / jdyak cruisin' down the river 

jd fishing the rock.....

Nice fish, looks like fun paddling in the river.

Mike and John on a slow but steady drift along the most scenic part of the river....this was the deepest hole along the 7 mile stretch - 25 feet.

Wow!  what an awesome trip that must have been!  The small mouths are of good size. .  I usually catch those in the summer with the mud eels but I did get one last nov.  What were you guys using for the steelies? Im assuming lures as the small mouth had one in it.. but ??    I went up to the Trinity by Weaverville, hooked a nice fish maybe 6-8 lbs on a 5 weight fly rod with a copper john.. (fly)   He broke my 8 pound test , soon after I saw another fish pushing 10-12 pounds jump right in front of me.   The Trinity is an awesome river to fish,  ..  made me wonder what the Russian used to be back in the day.         Im still up for the Russian though,,  not sure with this weather,, could be blown out for some time...   good timing for y'all to have gone!

Stay outta my fishladder ya pesky kids!!! Gotta go with you guys next time.

Nice fish, looks like fun paddling in the river.

yup, it's definitely something everyone should experience...but I would suggest a trip sometime in the middle of the week - just so you get the river to yourself.

If I was to do this trip again, I'd get a shorter & wider kayak. On a couple of the small rapids, I got spun around a few times (with the P15) and almost flipped  Another tip is to have an anchor that holds - Mike had a good system going for himself. His anchor was a 10# lead - that looked like a gigantic pyramid sinker. Neoprene water proof waders is the way to go as far as clothing. I made the mistake of not bringing mine and at the end of the drift I stood up and felt like a popsicle  

What were you guys using for the steelies?

We each had two rods - one was rigged with spin-n-glows and the other rod was rigged with a wiggle wart. I think Mike caught his trolling the wiggle wart on a deep hole right next to a wall.

NOTE: all hooks had to be "de-barbed" - you also need to buy a steel head stamp ($5.50).

The Trinity is on my list  Now that I've experienced river - kayak - fishing for the very first time I did like the fact that we did not encounter any jet boats on the Russian.