Report:Trinity River 105 to 90 *Updated w/ Pics link

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yakinthebox
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Report:Trinity River 105 to 90 *Updated w/ Pics link

Post by yakinthebox »

Well, after several months of planning, the time finally came to make the trip. I grew up around the Trinity River and had always been told by older family members how dangerous it is. I think they just wanted us to stay safe but in fact it scared me off of the River until now. I had got the itch a few years back and we finally made it happen.
Thankfully, the weather cooperated and we had pleasant days and comfortable evenings.
When we got a little too hot, the river was just the right temp for cooling off.

I can't figure out for the life of me why this river is not on peoples radar as a recreational hotspot. It was very nice, very little trash in the river(except near a couple of river side communuties that aren't really known for having clean type of folks in them).
It was very hazard free. The only hazards really are all of the trees in the river but they were quite easy to spot and avoid. I think we hit one log the whole trip that caught us offgaurd. With it's close proximity to Houston and it's relative ease of access, I just don't get the lack of people taking advantage of it.

The fishing was awful for us, but I think that was probably on us as neither of us has done a whole lot of river fishing, especially targetting Alligator Gar. I also think we did not target the correct areas after talking to a local at the takeout. We both had a couple of good hookups but we would lose the fish after 10-30 seconds. I let the fish run with my bait for a good 45 seconds before I tried setting the hook. (WHAT AM I DOING WRONG???)

But, despite the lack of fish caught, we had a TERRIFFIC time on this jewel of a river known as the Trinity.

Now on to the actual report.

We got a little bit of a later start than we wanted to due to our own slowness. We ended up launching at the 105 bridge west of Moss Hill at about 10:30am.

A couple sandbars later we decided to stop and wet some lines. Shortly thereafter something starts nibbling on my bros line and lo and behold, he reeled in a behemoth Blue Crab.

This would be par for the course as we believe most of the nibbles/bites we got were from the crabs.

We paddled on the rest of the afternoon stopping a few times along the way to either fish, eat/drink or take a dip in the river.

Note: I didn't get near as many pics as I would have liked to because I only had my cell phone which lived inside the kayak "off" most of the time.

We made it to camp around 4:30pm-ish and began to setup camp and hunt for firewood(which was very scarce).

We were greeted by a gorgeous sunset that afternoon and turned in not long after nightfall because we were both exhausted and also wanted to get away from the skeeters

On that, the mosquitos were not bad at all until it got dark, but then they got really thick and were out for blood.

I woke up in the middle of the night to my big rod/reel's clicker screaming at me. By the time I got out of the tent and got to it, it had dropped the bait. Bummer...

The next morning we woke up around 7 and put new bait on the lines and started to pack up and fix breakfast. I cooked up some breakfast tacos which were delicious. It's sort of my specialty on river trips. We were on the water again by about 9am that morning and the day flew by very fast.

As we were paddling along, my brother noticed a fish struggling on the bank. We paddled over to check it out and this is what we found.

We saw lots of wildlife along the way. 20+deer, 2 hogs, 2 gators, several flocks of teal, the snake eating the fish, woodstorks and several birds of prey and lots of other birds. Plus your typical cows, horses and donkeys. Didn't really get pics of any wildlife due to the camera situation.

Got to camp that night at about 4 as well and repeated the previous nights activity. I got a good run on a bait that I thought I had hooked but he spit it after about a 30 second battle.
Cooked dinner(Hobo Dinners) and turned in for the last night in the tent.

Woke up the last morning and only had about 6 miles to the takeout so we took our time and stopped many times along the way. I got a shot of my kayak at some point on the trip and was proud of my vessel and her carrying capacity. I had quite a bit of stuff and she could have held more.

To wrap it all up, the trip was great and though some fish would have made it better, I could not really complain. The weather was great, the water was great, the scenary was great, the quality time with my brother was great, and we just can't wait to go again.

And another plus was that we found lots of wild growing arrowhead duck potato and smartweed to plant around my brothers duck pond. Those were 2 plants that we hadn't been able to locate yet.

If you're looking to do a river trip, don't pass on the Trinity! She is a Beauty right out of Houston's backdoor.

Here are the pics http://s865.photobucket.com/user/yakint ... 014?sort=3" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Last edited by yakinthebox on Wed Oct 01, 2014 11:20 am, edited 2 times in total.
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yakinthebox
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Re: Report: Trinity River Hwy 105 to Hwy 90

Post by yakinthebox »

Can y'all see the pics? I tried doing them through photobucket so I could embed them in the report. BLAH.
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Hirsch
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Re: Report: Trinity River Hwy 105 to Hwy 90 Long Read

Post by Hirsch »

I am afraid I can't. I wish I could. :(
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yakinthebox
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Re: Report: Trinity River Hwy 105 to Hwy 90 Long Read

Post by yakinthebox »

Ok. I'm going to try to figure this out tomorrow.
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Firefly49
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Re: Report: Trinity River Hwy 105 to Hwy 90 Long Read

Post by Firefly49 »

lol. I spent a few hours last night after downloading Photobucket and learning how to do it in order to post up pic's of our Colorado River Dawg's trip. It was an experience.... and never did get the photos up as I would have liked. In the end, I just settled for a link to the slide show, lol!!

It looks like ya'll had a great trip and thanks for posting the review. Hoping to do a section of the Trinity again in the next month or so and this certainly gives an idea of the section you paddled. I agree ---- from what I've seen of it...it's a beautiful river that seems to be forgotten! I've done 20 or so miles of the Trinity several times but higher up with the takeout completed by coming through the slough to Harmon Creek Marina up towards Riverside. They were great trips (except for one PBer who came close to using us as targets, lol).
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Tomkat07
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Re: Report: Trinity River Hwy 105 to Hwy 90 Long Read

Post by Tomkat07 »

yakinthebox wrote:Ok. I'm going to try to figure this out tomorrow.
Hey bro, if you use the thumbnail links from photobucket it will post them up for you. I tinkered with the link to 1 image and was able to get to your photobucket and see the images from the trip. And some others like the stringer of trout and reds you guys caught.
Man that mud to get to the sandy camp site looked nasty lol.

Did you guys not bring any jugs at all? You could of caught some fish for sure to have at camp on that awesome fire. I see the river was still low and slow for you guys as I posted up for you before the trip. Looked like a great quality time with your brother.

How much water did you guys take with you?


Thumbnail will show up like this. But can be clicked on to see full size image.
Image


Wow look at that snake!
http://s865.photobucket.com/user/yakint ... sort=3&o=7" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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larry long shadows
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Re: Report: Trinity River Hwy 105 to Hwy 90 Long Read

Post by larry long shadows »

I can tell you why I stay away from the Trinity and I know it has changed since the 50's. but I grew up in Ft Worth and the Trinity was behind my house and smelled bad of sewage and toilet paper lined the banks.. then it went thru Dallas and got worse... But I need to get over that and hit it up one day Great post Thanks for sharing
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yakinthebox
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Re: Report: Trinity River Hwy 105 to Hwy 90 Long Read

Post by yakinthebox »

I have read that North of Livingston the river is not as desirable. But Southwest Paddler says that south of Livingston the river is very clean and I second that notion.
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yakinthebox
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Re: Report:Trinity River 105 to 90 *Updated w/ Pics link

Post by yakinthebox »

We did not bring jugs. I didn't see your message til I got back. The mud wasn't really bad, it was maybe 1/2" thick layer then hard sand again.

We both carried water filtration bottles but next time I think I'll bring some fresh water in as well(or maybe get a katadyn pump system). The personal Katadyn just doesn't flow fast enough to keep up with your thirst when you're hot. But it is great to not have to carry all that water weight.

We did have a great time!!!
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Tomkat07
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Re: Report:Trinity River 105 to 90 *Updated w/ Pics link

Post by Tomkat07 »

Honestly if your refering to poluted waters. I looked at a site once before showing poluted waters. and basically All of it is poluted. Even the bays. I forgot how many miles out before it started to clear up.
However, if you look at the dumping laws for marine vessels. It has list of trash and stuff that can be dumped into the water per mileage. out.
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fishr3
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Re: Report:Trinity River 105 to 90 *Updated w/ Pics link

Post by fishr3 »

Great report. If you think that was fun, try it again in January or February. Usually no mosquitoes then, and the nights are much cooler and campfire is more enjoyable. Never would have expected a blue crab that far upriver. New discoveries are one of my favorite things about river camping. Snake swallowing the fish pic was cool. My official start of camping season is October. I'm itching to get a trip on the schedule, but I have weekend commitments till the end of the month. I may just have to go during the week.
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yakinthebox
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Re: Report:Trinity River 105 to 90 *Updated w/ Pics link

Post by yakinthebox »

We were talking about planning a trip during the winter time and how much for that would be!!! I think we will!!!
Dogpaddlin
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Re: Report:Trinity River 105 to 90 *Updated w/ Pics link

Post by Dogpaddlin »

I spent a summer chasing alligator gar back in college. The thing I learned is you rarely actually got hook penetration, their snouts are solid bone. What finally worked for me was to let them chew on it for at least 60 seconds, then SLOWLY tighten the line and then MAINTAIN tension. I caught a bunch of nice needle nose but only one alligator gar. It took me 30 minutes to land him by myself on light tackle, but man was it AWESOME!!!
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yakinthebox
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Re: Report:Trinity River 105 to 90 *Updated w/ Pics link

Post by yakinthebox »

Thanks for the tip!
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