Hat Creek, Pit River

Autumn Days In Fly Fishing Country

by Matt

October is the June of the fall; both months mark a transitional period between seasons and mark the peak of fish activity. The weather in October can be fantastic with cooler evenings and comfortable afternoons. This year the cooler temperatures didn’t hit until halfway through the month which was unusual. Nevertheless I took advantage of my time off work and dad duty and made a trip up to fly fishing country to fish some of the finest trout water in California. My plan was to explore new waters on streams that I’ve fished in the past: the Pit River at Pit 5 and the lower section of Hat Creek.

I’ve been dreaming on getting on the Pit River again for quite some time after learning how to euro nymph. The pocket waters on the Pit are some of the best I’ve ever fished. Every spot that looked fishy had a fish in it. It didn’t matter if the spot was too small or too large if you threw a fly in it you would get a fish out of it. I’ve only fished the Pit twice and most of my time was spent on Pit 3 below the dam. I’ve read a lot of about how Pit 4 and Pit 5 having bigger water and bigger fish so I decided to check Pit 5 out to see if these reports were true.

Pit 5 is the last and furthest section from Pit 3 before the road turns away from the river only to cross it again at Big Bend. The drive took a little less than an hour from Pit 3 to Pit 5. I made camp at Madesi access in the evening in preparation to fish the Pit the following morning. I was looking forward to testing out some of my backpacking gear that I wasn’t able to play with during my Kern River trip. The nights low was 35 degrees and I felt confident that I would be able to survive the night in my bivy, sleeping bag, and sleeping pad. I was feeling somewhat comfortable until I woke up at 3am too cold to sleep. The sleeping bag that I brought was too short and not warm enough. I immediately called it quits. I had already prepared for failure earlier by setting up my car as a backup shelter and shivered my butt off attempting to throw all my sleeping gear into my car as quickly as I could. I slept just fine the rest of the night. A chilling reminder to test all gear before heading out too far into the backcountry.

The following day I didn’t start fishing until 9am. I wanted to give the sun some time to come up above the backs of the mountains to help warm up the river before heading out. Most rivers fish well early in the morning but when temperatures are near freezing the night before it’s always good to give the river some time to warm up so that the bugs can start moving and the fish can start feeding. I started below the Madesi parking lot and made my way downstream.

Pit 5 fished as amazing as I thought it would. I wasn’t wrong remembering fish in every spot that looked fishy. Most of the fish I caught were about 10″ – 12″ with a few bigger fish at about 14″ – 16″. I was euro nymphing with my Echo Shadow II 3WT which I had extended to 10’6”. Fly patterns that work best on the Pit River are dark nymphs and rubberleg stoneflies. I experimented with a self-tie streamer jig I dubbed the “Thingamajig” that was a mashup between a sculpin, stonefly, crawfish, and baitfish along with a dark lord attached to the tag end of my double surgeon’s knot. Most of my fish came off the dark lord but my biggest fish came from the thingamajig. I had lost count of all the fish I caught and guessed that I had caught at least 30 fish before I stopped fishing at around 4pm.

I believe that the Pit River below Lake Britton is the greatest trout stream in California with the exception that it’s extremely difficult to wade. It’s been awhile since I’ve been on the Pit and I romanticized how the wading was tough but also fun. I had fun catching fish but didn’t have nearly as much fun trying to get around the river. I tripped a few times and got a little wet but thankfully I didn’t go swimming. With the tough wading and great catching it’s amazing how much time you can spend on a short stretch of pocket water. I fished for 7 hours straight and found that I only traveled about 1000ft downstream from where I started. After my experience on Pit 5 I can’t say that Pit 5 fishes any better than Pit 3. I was expecting bigger fish but didn’t really hook into anything huge. I think I’ll stick to Pit 3 from now on since it’s closer, easier to access, and the fishing is just as good.

I had originally planned to fish Pit 3 the following day after Pit 5 but opted out because I didn’t want to wade challenging waters again. The previous day I had fished the lower section of Hat Creek below HWY 299 and did relatively well so I decided to put more time on it.

I was on PH riffle in the morning using the rig that I fished with in the lower section the day before and immediately started getting into fish. I’ve never had very much success fishing PH riffle thinking that the water was too skinny but I learned real quick that this was not the case. I caught over a dozen fish in PH riffle with the biggest being around 10”. After covering most of PH riffle I decided to venture downstream to the spring creek section to find rising heads. I found a few fish rising but nothing consistent enough to trick into eating a fly. I was hoping to find a BWO hatch midday but didn’t see anything hatching. I was off the spring creek section at around 1pm and drove down to the lower section.

There’s about a mile of water between HWY 299 and the dam that separates Lake Britton and Hat Creek. A quarter of it is spring creek water until it hits a point where the creek becomes gradient and slopes all the way down to the dam. I’ll admit that the first time I visited the lower section of Hat Creek I wasn’t very thrilled to try and fish it. I’ve been in so much love with the spring creek section of Hat Creek that fishing the riffles almost felt dirty to me. The lower section is skinny water made of up mostly riffles that looks too fast for fish to comfortably hold in. It wasn’t until I learned how to fish this section that I realized how wrong I was.

Fishing reports were saying that high sticking a rubberlegs was getting the job done so I rigged on a rubberlegs with a BWO nymph and starting tight-line nymphing my way through the skinny riffles. It wasn’t long until I hooked a fish and another and another. I had figured it out. I ended up hooking about a dozen fish within a few hours including a chunky trophy bow that I had only heard of existing but have never seen. I wasn’t able to cover as much water as I would have liked the first visit so after fishing Pit 5 I decided to check out Hat Creek again to see if I could find more big trout.

As soon as I arrived in the parking area I was grateful to find that I was going to be alone. It was a beautiful autumn day, the leaves were changing, the mountain chickadees were calling, and not a single human in sight. The fishing was phenomenal and I had a double digit fish day before the sun set over the mountains. I learned what type of water the big fish liked and was able to predict where they were going to be after finding my first two. I was fortunate enough to hook and land several this visit. Landing these big Hat Creek rainbows was extremely difficult due to the woody debris and gradient of the creek. The lower section of Hat Creek is essentially a waterslide with much of the water rushing downstream through several riffles. If you hook into a big fish and it decides to head straight downstream there’s absolutely no stopping it. Pull the opposite direction to try and lead them upstream and you’re sure to pop the hook out of their mouth. To land most of these magnificent fish I had to do some chasing into softer water where I then positioned myself downstream to scoop them up. I had one fish dive into a deep log jam where I somehow managed to carefully pull it out without breaking it off. A long-handled net definitely helped and I think I’ll be carrying one from here on out.

October is truly a great month for fly fishing. The pocket water on the Pit was both challenging and full of fish and I now know that big fish exist within Hat Creek. I still have a few spots on Pit 3 that I need to explore and I hope to someday hook a big fish on a dry in the spring creek section of Hat Creek. I can’t wait to return to fly fishing country.

Upper Kings River

The Venture Into The Kings Canyon

by Matt

Kings Canyon is the deepest canyon in North America with a depth of 8,200ft. Carved by glaciers of the past the tall granite walls that overlook the river are truly a sight to be seen. The Kings River is made up of three forks: the South, Middle, and North fork. All three of these forks converge to form the Upper Kings River which flows into Pine Flat Dam just outside of Fresno, CA.

I’ve fished Lower Kings below Pine Flat a few times in the past and fishing can be decent when it’s stocked. Between Pine Flat bridge downstream to Alta Weir is a put-and-take fishery that is just as heavily stocked as it is fished. From Alta Weir downstream to HWY 180 bridge is a stocked catch-and-release fishery. This section was created primarily to offer anglers an opportunity to fish for bigger trout just outside city limits. In a discussion with my cousin who is a local we discussed the issue of poaching within Central California. There is a large ethnic population within Fresno and the Lower Kings River is the only accessible river that is stocked with trout. My cousin spoke of people keeping more than their limit and poaching within the catch-and-release section. Not only is there the issue of overfishing and illegal fishing but also of river release. The Lower Kings is probably best fished at 500 – 600 CFS however the flows are heavily dependent on agriculture; extreme flows during the spring and summer are reduced to a trickle in the fall and winter. The Lower Kings is truly an unfortunate tailwater fishery.

The Upper Kings River above Pine Flat Dam is the ideal Central California fly fishing destination. It ticks all the boxes: freestone, difficult access, large trout, strict regulations, and prolific insect population. The Upper Kings River from above Pine Flat Dam to Garnet Dyke allows a two trout limit and from Garnet Dyke upstream to the confluence of the Middle and South Fork is catch-and-release only. All the trout in the Upper Kings are wild making this a special fishery.

My research on the seasons of the Upper Kings tells me that it is best fished during the fall (late September – early November) when the water is lower and the temperatures are cooler. The spring (March – early May) looks like it can be good before the run-off turns the river into a dangerous raging torrent of death. The high flows continue until the run-off ends in the summer mid-June or early July. Although fishable in the summer (July – early September) the Upper Kings is subjected to high water temperatures making it potentially lethal to catch and release trout in the lower sections of the river. I’ve seen photos of anglers doing well catching smallmouth bass in the summer so the Upper Kings might be a good smallmouth fishery during the summer. The winter (late November – February) looks like it might a hit or miss depending on the weather. I’ve read that flows on the Upper Kings below 1000 CFS are fishable and below 500 CFS safely wadeable.

From the Lower Kings the road winds around Pine Flat Reservoir for about an hour until you get your first look at the Upper Kings. I recommend taking motion sickness medication if you are susceptible as it is incredibly windy and somewhat bumpy. Pass Bailey Bridge the road turns into a dirt road that travels through several campgrounds before the road ends at Garnet Dyke. Although there were more campgrounds than I would have liked to have seen on the Upper Kings I observed that access to the river was restricted to a small area around them. The majority of the narrow dirt road placed us high above the river making scrambling down a steep canyon the only way to access the Upper Kings.

My cousin and I fished about a mile of water around Garnet Dyke. The water temperatures were good and the flows were decent at around 185 CFS below the North Fork. One of the most interesting observations I made during this visit were shucks of October caddis on the rocks along the river. I had always thought that October caddis emerge like all other caddis so discovery this was pretty exciting.

The fishing was fair. The pattern I noticed with these Upper Kings River rainbow trout was that they were very pool oriented. I caught a few in pocketwater but the majority of them seem to be holding in pools that had riffles dropping into them or in the deep runs below them. I throat pumped a few to see what they were eating and discovered that they were eating a little bit of everything with the addition of lots of tricos which was fascinating as I’ve only found trico eaters on spring creeks. The pattern that we did the best with was a prince nymph but we had grabs on frenchies and caddis emergers as well. The average size fish was about 14″ and the fish of the day was 18″. I was pleasantly surprised how hard these Upper Kings rainbows fought. Though they were spread out quite a bit each fish was worth hooking into.

Due to how remote the area is I concluded that the Upper Kings isn’t day trip friendly. It can be done however the best experience would have been to fish the entire day and then camp at one of the various campgrounds overnight. There was a ton of water that we weren’t able to get to before it got too dark. The Upper Kings is a fantastic wild trout fishery that I hope to someday fish again in the future. I’m thinking of a backpacking trip either hiking in from the Kings River trail or going down the Yucca Point trail to the confluence of the Middle and South forks. So much water so little time.

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