Pupa
10-13-2015, 09:44 PM
After several years abroad on the Green, my buds and I returned to the mighty Pit for our annual fishing trip. Weather was hot and sunny by day and cool and starry by night. Water on all stretches very cool and trouty. Lake Britton was full and all the small tributaries were gushing, no sign of drought up here despite the severe lack of rain. I suppose the Lassen and Shasta aquifers are still in good shape. The menu was black and deep. Rubber legs and dark lords morning, afternoon and evening. Also did well on olive caddis larva. Best action 10-2 and 4-7. Got some strikes skating orange stimmie at dusk and swinging crayfish mid afternoon. A few Oct. caddis and mayflies but did not see any isonychia’s and few fish rising. Sorry no photos.
Day 1: Brief assessment of Pit 5 below Big Bend but no real camping options so we moved up river. Checked-out 5 below dam which looked gnarly but definitely fishy. Set-up camp along Pit 4. River high as expected with Amazonian streamside vegetation. Managed to cross and work the bank down river without major obstacles. Non-stop action of fatty rainbows. Also caught the ultimate buzz-kill 20”+ sucker. Dredging the ‘steelhead water’ with dark lords and caddis larva was the ticket. My buddy was in bad shape as he decided to skimp on the wadding staff. Shared some beers with a fellow angler Nate from Truckee who was camping nearby – also having some stellar fishing action on Pit 4.
Day 2: Fished Pit 3 from 11-6:30. A lot of rainbows with the occasional brown – 12-18” range. Many, many fish. Action started picking-up again around 4 after a slow afternoon. I was angling to get to a tasty mid-river run. To get there, I had to navigate through some thick deep current so I let me rig dangle behind me just above a small braid in skinny water as I stumbled outward. What a thought was a careless snag behind me turned out to be one of the most bizarre big fish catches of my life. The dropper was inhaled by a 20” brown that I managed to land without net through some very heavy current on 4x tippet. How cool is that!
Day 3: Fished Pit 3 from 10:30-7. Hit a few stretches of pocket water with success on black nymphs. Fished the Rock Creek stretch in late afternoon evening. This was one of the most pleasurable fishing experiences I’ve had in recent memory: fall sunset colors, Indian summer air, cool water, spinner swarms bobbing in the air, wading upriver waist deep and hooking-up every second cast. The current was heavy and dangerous but it just added to the thrill of the experience. I didn’t think it would be any more memorable but boy was I wrong. As I rounded the far-bank bend below the Rock Creek frog water, I was startled by a large animal who had just jumped into the rapids and began swimming towards the far bank (road side) – maybe 25’ feet away. For an instant I thought it was a deer given the size and color but quickly realized I was looking at an adult cougar! My instinct was to crouch and hide behind a bush but as soon as he reached the bank, he sensed my presence and met my gaze. I stood tall, raised my arms, staff and rod and began to holler like a blubbering idiot. He tensed, stood staring at me for a moment and then disappeared into the streamside brush. In order to calm my freak-out, I continued to fish and contemplate my exit strategy and general fate. It was getting dark and I had to cross the river and bushwhack back to the road. I remember in Costa Rica that the birds would squawk loudly to warn their kin of approaching danger (killer ants and other predators). Sure enough, thus began a chorus of loud and agitated squawking right where I was planning to cross. I was certain the cougar was stalking me and I was having a near-death experience. I again started hollering like an idiot as I worked my way across the river towards the foreboding darkness on the other side. Apparently, I was loud enough that my friends who were enjoying a beer back at the car heard me (they later said it sounded like a mountain lion mating call). They ran up the road to find me assuming I had injured myself badly. All in all, what a surreal beautiful experience! I ran into a bear on Pit 5 many years back, but this was an experience of a lifetime.
On another note, we all like to whine a bit about the ‘new’ flows on the Pit (myself included). Consider this – the new 300-500 cfs flows are a mere trickle compared to the historic, natural, pre-hydropower flows of the mighty Pit. From Wikipedia:
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) operates a stream gage on the Pit River at Montgomery Creek, directly below Pit 7 Dam and above Shasta Lake. This gage measures streamflow from an area of 4,952 square miles (12,830 km2), or 70 percent of the total watershed. The average streamflow between 1966 and 2012 was 4,786 cu ft/s (135.5 m3/s), with a maximum of 73,000 cu ft/s (2,100 m3/s) recorded on January 24, 1970, after heavy rainfall
Day 1: Brief assessment of Pit 5 below Big Bend but no real camping options so we moved up river. Checked-out 5 below dam which looked gnarly but definitely fishy. Set-up camp along Pit 4. River high as expected with Amazonian streamside vegetation. Managed to cross and work the bank down river without major obstacles. Non-stop action of fatty rainbows. Also caught the ultimate buzz-kill 20”+ sucker. Dredging the ‘steelhead water’ with dark lords and caddis larva was the ticket. My buddy was in bad shape as he decided to skimp on the wadding staff. Shared some beers with a fellow angler Nate from Truckee who was camping nearby – also having some stellar fishing action on Pit 4.
Day 2: Fished Pit 3 from 11-6:30. A lot of rainbows with the occasional brown – 12-18” range. Many, many fish. Action started picking-up again around 4 after a slow afternoon. I was angling to get to a tasty mid-river run. To get there, I had to navigate through some thick deep current so I let me rig dangle behind me just above a small braid in skinny water as I stumbled outward. What a thought was a careless snag behind me turned out to be one of the most bizarre big fish catches of my life. The dropper was inhaled by a 20” brown that I managed to land without net through some very heavy current on 4x tippet. How cool is that!
Day 3: Fished Pit 3 from 10:30-7. Hit a few stretches of pocket water with success on black nymphs. Fished the Rock Creek stretch in late afternoon evening. This was one of the most pleasurable fishing experiences I’ve had in recent memory: fall sunset colors, Indian summer air, cool water, spinner swarms bobbing in the air, wading upriver waist deep and hooking-up every second cast. The current was heavy and dangerous but it just added to the thrill of the experience. I didn’t think it would be any more memorable but boy was I wrong. As I rounded the far-bank bend below the Rock Creek frog water, I was startled by a large animal who had just jumped into the rapids and began swimming towards the far bank (road side) – maybe 25’ feet away. For an instant I thought it was a deer given the size and color but quickly realized I was looking at an adult cougar! My instinct was to crouch and hide behind a bush but as soon as he reached the bank, he sensed my presence and met my gaze. I stood tall, raised my arms, staff and rod and began to holler like a blubbering idiot. He tensed, stood staring at me for a moment and then disappeared into the streamside brush. In order to calm my freak-out, I continued to fish and contemplate my exit strategy and general fate. It was getting dark and I had to cross the river and bushwhack back to the road. I remember in Costa Rica that the birds would squawk loudly to warn their kin of approaching danger (killer ants and other predators). Sure enough, thus began a chorus of loud and agitated squawking right where I was planning to cross. I was certain the cougar was stalking me and I was having a near-death experience. I again started hollering like an idiot as I worked my way across the river towards the foreboding darkness on the other side. Apparently, I was loud enough that my friends who were enjoying a beer back at the car heard me (they later said it sounded like a mountain lion mating call). They ran up the road to find me assuming I had injured myself badly. All in all, what a surreal beautiful experience! I ran into a bear on Pit 5 many years back, but this was an experience of a lifetime.
On another note, we all like to whine a bit about the ‘new’ flows on the Pit (myself included). Consider this – the new 300-500 cfs flows are a mere trickle compared to the historic, natural, pre-hydropower flows of the mighty Pit. From Wikipedia:
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) operates a stream gage on the Pit River at Montgomery Creek, directly below Pit 7 Dam and above Shasta Lake. This gage measures streamflow from an area of 4,952 square miles (12,830 km2), or 70 percent of the total watershed. The average streamflow between 1966 and 2012 was 4,786 cu ft/s (135.5 m3/s), with a maximum of 73,000 cu ft/s (2,100 m3/s) recorded on January 24, 1970, after heavy rainfall