Burney Area Report

[jhaquett]

Yesterday I fished:
1. Upper Hat Creek at Subway Cave Campground
2. Middle Hat Creek at Powerhouse #2
3. Lower Hat Creek at the Hat Creek Park off of 299
4. Burney Creek right below the falls.

Hat Creek was slow and is crowded in the upper section and gets less crowded as you get lower.

I caught only one fish in the upper section and it was very busy...not such a great place to go right now.

Powerhouse #2....fishing well. If you can get position in the best riffle you can hook around 10 fish with a midge or microfly below an electric pheasant tail or something similar. If it is busy when you arrive and the main riffle is occupied you are probably going to have a tough day. You can catch a lot of big fish at the actual spillway but it is a very synthetic experience and not something I would suggest to the members of this fine board.

Lower Hat Creek in the middle of the day (when I tried it) is very tough. No activity to speak of. Not suggested in mid-day or right at the park. I went there just to have a picnic, it is an excellent place for a picnic and to teach your girlfriend a little more about casting and presentation.

Burney Creek was by far my best experience of the day. The falls this time of year are absolutely beautiful. It was 90 degrees above the fall and 75 with a fine mist below the falls! The water is frozen cold and I didn't have waders but your legs tend to numb up plenty fast. Using my same pheasant tail/micro mayfly setup I fished the first two of the various pools up and down the creek. The scenery is amazing and if you fish with your back towards the path and keep your eye on the water you never notice another remnant of human life because of the noise from the falls. I managed to land all fish that I hooked, 7 in all. All of the fish were beautiful wild rainbows 9-11" and were excellent fighters. I only fished for about an hour.

If you go to the Burney area I HIGHLY suggest fishing around the falls! Go down the creek fishing the larger pools with an indicator setup, and on your way back up use a high-stick method for the smaller pools.

[JT]

Nice report. The falls pool on Burney Creek is awesome! I fished the edges about a month ago with a micromay and landed some nice fish, the biggest being a 16" brown. I hooked a rainbow the same size that spit the hook in my face right at the net. There are some really nice fish in that pool. I was hoping to get into some bigger fish, but we had to leave early due to an unexpected thunderstorm that rolled through the area (we weren't as prepared as we should have been).

[jhaquett]

Wow...I didn't even try the actual waterfall pool. Did you have the micromay under an indicator or were you using a sink tip line, etc? I'll have to try that out first before fishing the creek riffles next time.

[JT]

I was using a typical nymph and indicator rig.

[Adam Grace]

I was there a couple of years ago with my buddy Gregg. Below are a few pictures of the Fall area.







That area is beautiful.

[jhaquett]

The riffle Greg is fishing in that picture is the one that I caught 6 of my 7 fish on. That's an excellent spot especially with the Falls sitting right there in the backdrop!

[El Rey]

I fished Hat Creek over the weekend, mostly PH2. Nice spinner falls in the evening. Then in the morning, 8:30-10:30, there is a nice Trico hatch. Caught quite a few, but I landed only 2 or 3. It got very windy on Saturday afternoon, and the catching shut down. I didn't try nymphs, as I'm stubborn enough to keep trying dries.

I am haunted by those waters.

I wanted to try Burney Creek below the falls but never got there. Wish I had.