Pit River Campgrounds?

[ccorrin]

Hey Guys,
I was planning on making a trip up the Pit River this weekend. I had heard great things about Deep Creek campground from this forum and was planning to stay there, but just found out that according to this site it is closed due to storm damage? Bummer, beacuse I read that the fishing was good right from camp.

http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/stnf/home/?cid=stelprdb5165647

I havent been up there before, but ive heard good things about the area. I was hoping to camp somewhere right on the water so I could fish from camp. That being said, does anyone know of any good campsites that are near fishable waters? I have been told that Pit 4 and Pit 3 are the best places to start. It looks like PGE has some campgrounds around the area, but im having a hard time finding anything on the map and was wondering if you guys had some experience with some other sites in the area?

http://recreation.pge.com/Campgrounds-and-RV-Parks/All/Ruling-Creek-Campground-and-River-Access/Overview

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, preferably somewhere close to the water. Doesnt have to be a super devloped campsite.

Thanks! ;):confused:

[Dinky Jr]

I hadn't heard that the Deep Creek campground is closed, but definitely am not completely in the loop. Was up there about 3 weeks ago and it was open. It is a nice campground, right on the river in the Pit 4 reach. When not staying there, I usually camp at MacArthur Burney Falls which is nearby. It's a nice campground with showers, a general store, and while it can often be crowded, is usually much less so this time of year. You can reserve a site here:
http://www.reserveamerica.com/facilityDetails.do?contractCode=CA&parkId=120054

[JasonB]

Dinky, the Deep creek camp IS closed. The campground you're talking about on Pitt 4 is Ruling Creek, and IS open.

CCorrin, just head up there. You'll find camping and fishing, don't worry about it :-)
JB

[kylgrn]

I hadn't heard that the Deep Creek campground is closed, but definitely am not completely in the loop. Was up there about 3 weeks ago and it was open. It is a nice campground, right on the river in the Pit 4 reach. When not staying there, I usually camp at MacArthur Burney Falls which is nearby. It's a nice campground with showers, a general store, and while it can often be crowded, is usually much less so this time of year. You can reserve a site here:
http://www.reserveamerica.com/facilityDetails.do?contractCode=CA&parkId=120054

I stayed here last weekend, it was pretty sparse in the campground, cabin area was packed though.

[ccorrin]

Thanks for the info guys. Looks like ruling creek is the ticket then!

[Tfisher]

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o288/asterr/PitRiverRecreationSites.jpg (http://s123.photobucket.com/user/asterr/media/PitRiverRecreationSites.jpg.html)

[GreggW]

Tfisher - great map. Thank you.
Gregg

[Dinky Jr]

Doh! You're right JasonB... I'm getting my creeks mixed up apparently. I've actually never been able to find the Deep Creek campsite... I've wandered around on the dirt tracks heading upstream from the Pit 5 dam (on the opposite side of the river than Ruling Creek campground, river left) but never been able to actually discover it. I think you can actually trace out the dirt road to the location on Google Earth but I've never had any luck. A prior post from a ways back mentioned that there is a big boulder blocking the road now, but I haven't been able to find that either. Either way, the Pit is one of my favorites to fish, despite the difficult wading. I think the fish have gotten a bit bigger on average (and seemingly have much darker coloration) since they raised the flows a few years back. The wading definitely got tougher. Good luck, ccorrin! Give us an update when you get back.

-Carl

[ccorrin]

Hey Guys,
Just got back from a two day camping trip with two other friends. We drove up early Friday morning and stayed at Ruling Creek campground and fished PIT 4. Was fairly easy to find, clean facilities and nice shaded campgrounds. We hiked downstream from camp and fished as far as we could get for most of the day until dark. We caught a few decent size fish but nothing very large, fishing mostly pocket water and seams with indicators. Most of my fish where caught on Various Prince Nymphs. I had no success with larger birds’ nests or my dark hare’s ear's. A few fish where taken on Flash Back Peasant Tails. Also tried throwing some dries’ in the evening but couldn’t get anything on them.

Wader level/speed was manageable and still fairly murky. I would have likes it to be about 50 CFS lower because there were a lot of spots I just could not fish effectively due to the water level. Wading was tough for sure, I had a wading staff and just took it really slow. It's important not to walk and fish here it or you will pay for it. There are a lot of blackberry bushes with large thorns right now, so it's sometimes tough to follow the stream without going up to the road and back down when you want to move spots. We had to take some pretty knarly hills as a shortcut a few times which is always fun. We were able to go downstream pretty far but at some point it will get too deep and you will have to brave the bushes or head back to the road and make it to the next turnout.

Overall we had a fun time, the area is beautiful and the fishing was decent. Nothing of size caught, but I’m sure that is our skill not the river conditions at fault. Any tips would be appreciated, as I’m sure I will be back at some point. I have several bruises on my legs and some slices from the blackberry bushes, this place will beat you down but it is great fun for the adventurous angler.

It was about a 4-hour drive for us, and the first day we started fishing I actually snapped my only fly rod by grabbing it in the top as the reel was pushing away in the current. Ended up driving back into Burney and buying a fly rod from the local sporting goods shop for a decent price, so the trip was not lost, though I was bummed out for a while there.

Thanks for the suggestions on the campsite. We had a great weekend getting outdoors, even if we didn’t land any large fish. :cool: