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HOLLY A. HEYSERThe spring-run chinook salmon is renowned for its high fat content.
For my boyfriend, Hank Shaw – who is obsessed with cooking – the abracadabra moment came with a description of the fish: "They're so fat it's like they come with their own butter."
I was hypnotized by a description of the river: "The water is so clear you can see 20 feet down. Sometimes you can see the fish coming in to take your bait. And some days you don't see anyone else on the water."
"We're in," we told Jon Harrison of Five Rivers Guide Service in Orangevale. We were going salmon fishing on the Trinity River.
Salmon fishing was becoming a distant memory for us with the unexpected collapse of the Sacramento River Chinook salmon run in fall 2007. The fish count inexplicably plunged to barely half of what was needed for a sustainable population. State and federal agencies responded by drastically curtailing salmon fishing in 2008, and again this year.
But salmon runs on the Klamath River and its tributary, the Trinity, are in better shape, so riches await anyone willing to make the 3½-hour trip north. And for Harrison, nothing compares to the Trinity.
"It's my favorite of the rivers I fish," he said, naming waterways: Sacramento, American, Feather, Yuba and Trinity. "You can get away from people. It reminds me of my childhood fishing in the Sierras, but the fish are much larger."
When we fished the Trinity with Harrison a few weeks ago, we targeted the spring run, the first of two Chinook runs on the river.
The fall salmon run, which is projected to be quite robust this year, is what brings anglers out in droves in September and October.
But the spring run is unusual: Instead of heading upriver and spawning fairly quickly as the fall fish do, spring-run Chinook sprint up the Trinity as early as April and spend the summer lolling in deep holes until they reach sexual maturity. Then they move into spawning beds.
(The spring run begins in mid-June, when water flows drop to manageable levels, and continues through August. Fishers can catch and keep two salmon a day, starting in January. Possession is also limited to no more than two.)
Because salmon don't feed after they enter fresh water, these fish must pack on the fat before leaving the ocean for the last act of their lives. That's what Harrison meant when he said they come with their own butter. They're as good as, or better than, ocean-caught salmon.
That was appealing to me because I'd caught one salmon in my life – a 32-pound monster, just south of downtown Sacramento – and rather than being delighted with the feast I'd caught, I was put off. It tasted like the Sacramento River from which it had come.
Now we were just waiting for proof that the Trinity springers were everything Harrison said.
On the first morning of our two-day trip, we set out on the river at 5:30 a.m.
"You can't write where we are," Harrison said sternly, looking me in the eye.
We soon found out why: This stretch of the upper Trinity River was virtually deserted, even though there were plenty of anglers in the area. We knew from the empty trailer where we had parked that there was one boat in the water ahead of us, but in more than seven hours on the river that day, we saw just one other angler – a man fishing from the bank.
Soon after putting in, Harrison rowed us in his drift boat just a short way downstream before stopping just above a pool that was dotted with rocks covered by lush bunch grasses and Indian rhubarb. He spent a few minutes tying sardine filets onto Quikfish lures, trussing them up with fishing line. Because salmon don't eat in fresh water, the idea wasn't to tantalize their taste buds but to irritate them, prompting an attack.
Harrison dropped the first Quikfish into the water and let line out until the lure hit the spot where he knew the fish lay. Thunk! Thunk! A fish was on the line immediately. He handed the rod to Hank, who started reeling, and then just as quickly the fish was free.
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