The Fly Shop

The Fly Shop’s guide staff runs walk-and-wade days on both the Pit River and Hat Creek: eight to ten hours of guided fishing with lunch provided and all the necessary terminal tackle included, flies, rods, reels, lines, leaders, tippet, indicators and split shot, at $625 a day for one or two anglers, though waders, boots and a wading staff are not part of the package. The Pit is described as a series of dams and reservoirs that stretch for some thirty miles from Lake Britton to Shasta Lake, a pocket-water fisherman’s dream-stream littered with boulders, now open to year-round fishing and primarily nymph fished by the guide staff; March Browns and smaller caddisflies can begin as early as February, Pale Morning Duns start in mid-April, salmonflies and Golden Stoneflies follow in late spring, and Isonychia mayflies and giant October Caddis close the season. Most Pit trips start by meeting the guide at the Big Bend Store. On Hat Creek the work is the lower 3.2 miles of Wild Trout water from Powerhouse #2 to Lake Britton, ten minutes east of Burney, where shallow easily waded riffles and long glass-smooth flats demand long leaders, delicate presentations and precise hatch matching for the resident rainbow and brown trout, with May and June the prime months for salmonflies and Green Drakes.