The South Fork of the Trinity is the wild one — the longest free-flowing river left in California, running undammed out of the Yolla Bolly country through deep forested canyon to meet the main Trinity. That wildness is its character and its catch: with no dam to steady the flows, it runs high and cold with the winter rains and snowmelt, then drops and warms hard through the rainless summer. It's a steelhead and salmon river first, with resident rainbows holding in the cooler reaches, and the steelhead fishing follows the wet-season flows that draw fish up from the Trinity. Summer can leave the lower river low and warm enough that the fish need refuge, not anglers. Fish it when the water is up and cool, walk into the canyon for the wild trout, and respect a river that still runs the way rivers are supposed to.

• River
• Mixed