How is the Pit River?

[amoeba]

Nice fish, and:

that's great looking water with the new flows; before half the boulders were exposed; I know, I know, it is basically unwadeable. But so much more trout-friendly water, and the prospect of lower pressure (especially by guides and fly-group "party fishing"), could be a bonanza for the commoners, provided they adapt. How?

Probably, the following or more: a) wet wading, possibly with full wet-suits, and dry-bag slingpacks, b) small craft (light driftboat, kayak, oar-frame raft) and anchors, and c) upgraded studs, on felt, probably the aluminum craze, or anything else that works (i.e., not rubber).

This is one of the first places I go in spring (usually Pitt 4 or 5), as soon as the flows drop under 650 cfs. Twenty fish days will be the norm, and few others will try it (if they have, I don't see them).

And with a 30 year license issued by the FERC, water quality certified by the Water Board, and all resource agencies on board, all's I can say is this.................Sweet.

[EricO]

"But so much more trout-friendly water...."

Hey Amoeba, not sure on this. Found some new water on Pit 3 but alot of it is just too high and some money riffles I used to fish are gone now. Liked it much better at 150 cfs. That said, the fish are still there and we did quite well.

Not a bad idea with wading in a wet suit. I'm going to have to give that one serious thought. Wet wading was perfect this summer- if you step in a big hole up to your chest, big deal since the water was so refreshing.

Pit 4...well, my favorite runs there are all but gone with the current 400+ flows. Perhaps if they dropped to 350 cfs it would still be good. But for now, I'll skip Pit 4 and 5 altogether.

EO

[fallriverfish]

Amoeba how much did you get paid to post this ? The whole process for the relicensing was total bullshit. Cal Trout sold us all down the river on this one. The "environmental" company paid to do the EIR for PG&E is basically PG&E private environmental company. Look at the spring rivers client list http://www.springrivers.com/client_list.asp Basically the entire net worth of this company and couple have been financed by PG&E.

From what I have heard from other guides is the river is fishing much slower but is also much, much warmer than in the past. The reason for the increase in flows was to install power generators in reaches 3 and 4 to make money for PG&E. Spring Rivers is not gonna burn there money tree.

"smells like crap, looks like crap, geez must be a rose"

Bill Downs
Fishing Guide
Burney California

[JasonB]

Amoeba how much did you get paid to post this ? The whole process for the relicensing was total bullshit. Cal Trout sold us all down the river on this one. The "environmental" company paid to do the EIR for PG&E is basically PG&E private environmental company. Look at the spring rivers client list http://www.springrivers.com/client_list.asp Basically the entire net worth of this company and couple have been financed by PG&E.

From what I have heard from other guides is the river is fishing much slower but is also much, much warmer than in the past. The reason for the increase in flows was to install power generators in reaches 3 and 4 to make money for PG&E. Spring Rivers is not gonna burn there money tree.

"smells like crap, looks like crap, geez must be a rose"

Bill Downs
Fishing Guide
Burney California

I'm confused as to how the increased flows could make for much, much warmer waters??? I've never been to the Pit, so I don't really know one way or another, but this part doesn't really make any sense to me...
JB

[Notch]

I thought the increase in flows were deemed beneficial to the aquatic life in the river, and pg&e constructed the powerhouses on 3,4 to tap into the "wasted" water they had to put in the river and not through the penstocks.
As for the warm water..it should be about the same temp since the water is released from the bottom of Britton, and warms from there. I don't think the reservoirs downstream are deep enough to stratify, so the river gets progressively warmer down to Shasta

[Fish Head]

Everyone I talk to about the Pit says it is fishing well ... More difficult than the previous flows for wading, and crossing is difficult to impossible where possible in the past. Bottom line, the fish are still there and are less harassed, if you are willing to go after them.

[Sierrapacific]

Hi Guys:
I'm currently writing a story on the fishability of the Pit since the FERC
re-licensing, for a national mag. I'd really like to hear additional comments
about your experiences comparing the fishing on the Pit both before and
the after the increase in flows. Feel free to email me at vinci.greg@gmail.com

Greg Vinci

[amoeba]

Everyone I talk to about the Pit says it is fishing well ... More difficult than the previous flows for wading, and crossing is difficult to impossible where possible in the past. Bottom line, the fish are still there and are less harassed, if you are willing to go after them.

I would say hush....but.....the only side complaining are guides, whose clients don't wanna get wet.

As to a national article, knock yourself out; but just about everything ever said and much more is in the filings of agencies and NGO's on FERC's website (late 90's to early 00's). I would hope that the McCloud relicensing would go as well - and result in much better spring flows than are being tossed around by the guide community, but the government is being spread thin by cutbacks.

As good as it was with the old 150 cfs regime, everyone was fishing 10-15% of the river length, especially in Pit's 4 and 5; long warm jerkwater pools separated by riffles in which the trout concentrated and be hammered to no tarnation. Now they are spread out, there is more habitat, much more river to fish, and, as noted the fish are still there. They are also there in typical uncontrolled winter flows of 20X the summer flow which are truely unfishable. This is not that. It's somewhat more water. In terms of fishability, more is fishable than there was before.

[Tfisher]

Can anyone actually define the term "fishability"?

The ability of an angler to catch a fish is not a scientifically measurable concept... Do people use this term synonymously with wadability, if so they should make that distinction.

Since when was the Pit ever an easy place to wade?

Water temperatures are much cooler now (look at the guage data).

[amoeba]

Yes:

"fishability" is a user-defined quantity or score; somewhat like rafting studies, fishability studies are becoming more commonly done pre-application to relicensing; usually by professional fishermen/consultants who use different methods, record semiqualitative experiential scores and fish caught much as you would do in filling out a DFG stream survey report. It's hard to make firm comparisons because it involves comparing test flows, different seasons or times of year. Sometimes they even post videos, as they did with the more recent upper north fork feather license (seneca and belden reaches).

I personally found Pit very difficult to not only wade, but even walk near the stream due to the abundance of Torrent sedge that made it hard to see 2 foot holes from solid rock. I'm thinking the margins are actually a bit easier to wade, although the stream harder to cross (at least without swimming). It was never easy to get around that river.