Construction on Pit river road

[EricO]

Hey Vinny, nicely worded and 100% accurate. My buddy said to me
the other day, "you never leave the Pit unscathed." Quite true.
I've been fishing it 3x per year for about 9-10 years and have all the
battle scars to prove it.

I agree, the worst thing is going from knee deep to the "oh crap" chest
deep in one step. Then with the water flow pushing you downstream,
it's even harder to back up out of that!

I'm finding that the older I get, the slower I need to move on that river.
If you move too fast, bad things can happen.

Glad you got into some fish! And not a bad idea with the machete. Hmmm.

EO

[JasonB]

I fished the Pit River for 40 years with my brother Dick and some of my dearest old friends.

It "was" my favorite wild trout stream.

The summer and fall flow then was about 120 cfs and it was warm in the fall and fun to wet wade/swim.

In mid-September we would hit the Isonychia mayfly emergence.

For real reasons unknown the powers to be have raised the flows to 380 to 550 cfs which has made it pretty much unfishable for most.

I have been told that very few guides are on the Pit River now that the flows are so high.

I am 70 now and tried it once last fall and it is over for me.

Sad to see that for some weird reason they have basically destroyed the river for fly fishing.

There are tons of fish but it is very hard to wade now.

They also run the water up to over 1000 cfs about once a month in the summer for rafters.

This will destroy the insect population.

What do you think?

..

Respectfully I'd have to differ with your sentiments about this river having been "destroyed". In fact, I'm quite pleased that there is more water flowing down those canyons these days. It already gets very warm in the summer, so I see more water as a good thing for the fish (a bit cooler, more oxygenated, etc). We as anglers just have to adapt. Sure the Pit is not for everyone, no one ever said it was an easy river to fish. I am ok with that; I'm not nearly as concerned with how easy the stream is to wade and/or fish as I am with the health of the fishery as a whole. To me, 330+/- cfs on Pit 3 and 420cfs for Pit 4 is still a bit on the low side really. I've fished both a fair bit higher, and yes it is tough, but again I'm ok with that. Not sure how long I'll be able to wade and fish there, but I intend to keep at it as long as I can before moving on to fish other streams with easier wading.

As far as the WW releases, they are pretty few and far between on the Pit 3,4, and 5 reaches. There is one or two in Sept I think and there was one scheduled for August but I am not sure if it happened or not? There are a few others for the Pit 1 reach above lake Briton. I don't know how much of an impact that will really have, but I will say that the insect life seems quite robust so far on all reaches.

I only make this point as I really cringe at the whole idea of ever managing/regulating stream ecosystems with ease of fishing for anglers as being a major deciding influence. Just ensure that the fish are happy and healthy and the potential for great fishing will follow.
JB
JB

[booneshaya]

Jason, you couldn't be more right. Fish are bigger now than before the lower flows and I catch double the fish I used to on the Pit. I'm in my mid 50's and fish the Pit at least a dozen days a year and wet wade it every time. Takes a little work to figure out these higher flows than before but well worth the effort. My favorite wild trout stream by far.