Shasta Camping Pt. 2

This is Part 2 of a 2 part post.

Day 3: 

Breakfast time!

Crunch time! It was our last day camping, we were getting ready to take off that afternoon so it was do or die for our fish catching venture. After breakfast we stopped for worms at the store for some panfish, I asked the clerk who told me her husband caught a 13 lb bass out at the second bridge. 

under the bridge

Sac River

With all of this in mind we traversed a steep hike down to the spot where the river begins widening up into the actual lake. The water here was fast and muddy but after the bridge empties into the lake and it becomes slow moving. I tossed in lure after lure in the slow moving lake areas and tossed a second line in for panfish but nothing. 

beginning of Lake Shasta

Catfishy water

My dad had a catfish set up going on his rod. I looked at the area where he was fishing next to the bridge and I thought it looked very catfishy but I figured it was too shallow. Nonetheless I was tired of bass fishing so I switched to a bottom feeding rig, tossed my line , it bounced off of the bridge structure and landed close and sunk down.   

15 inch Catfish

19 inch catfish

I wasn’t sure if it was the current or a fish but something was taking my line so I set the hook and it was fish on!  I reeled in a nice 15 inch catfish, maybe a pound or a pound and a half. It was a nice cat so my dad was over looking at it when all of a sudden his rod was being swept away. He ran, set the hook and began reeling in a cat, but it started running and peeling line. He fought it for a couple of minutes on 3 year old 10 lb test that seemed to be bad. At one point he handed me the rod and went down to land it. I reeled him on in so he could get to it and he lifted it up by the line. The line snapped, the fish fell and Ol’ pops quickly reacted and caught it in his hands. Of course the fish did stick him but with two on the stringer we headed to camp. 

We finished packing everything up and headed out of camp. We stopped by the city of Redding to get a late lunch and headed home. On the way back we spotted the Oscar Meyer mobile, which had to be some sort of good luck, right? 

Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Wiener...

In all it was a great camping trip with the exception of the drought effects which are extremely sad. I wasn’t too impressed with Shasta but I will definitely visit Whiskeytown lake in the future. 

Total fish: 1 Catfish

 

Shasta Camping Pt. 1

This is part 1 of a 2 part post. The original was pretty long and I have a lot of pictures so I figured I would cut it up into two parts. Enjoy!

It’s sad boys, VERY sad. The once majestic Shasta lake has been reduced to a muddy ditch. The upper Sacramento river is a mere 4 foot deep creek at the headwaters of Shasta. We need rain!

I went camping with the whole family up at Shasta lake this weekend and the effects of the drought were evident.

Day 1:

 While driving  up to the campgrounds we passed up a sign saying that the boat launch in that area had been closed.  We arrived at our campground and it was a nicely maintained area. The campground caretaker was a very nice older man who used to live in sacramento so we had a lot to talk about. 

Amphitheater on campground

boat ramp

Like a ghost town

After setting up camp and getting some lunch we went down to  get some fishing in. We had to walk through a ghost town of a boat launch which apparently was never imagined to be this low. The river was about 300 yards from the very bottom of the launch. The upper Sacramento is a mere creek at the bottom of a valley.  

Sac River headwaters

The Canyon

Camping Selfie

Nephews 1st Bass

We happened to find a pooled up area about 5 feet deep and decided to fish there. My nephew Anthony grabbed my new strike king red eye shad in a bluegill pattern, tied it on, tossed it in and got into the second fish of his entire life, a 12 inch largemouth bass.  I was one proud uncle! We saw a few bigger largemouths and some of them even took our baits in their mouths but refused to clamp down on them. My dad and I ended up getting skunked that day.  We decided to get some dinner instead.

Upper Sacramento River

Day 2:

Pops made us some fantastic breakfast and afterwards we decided to head out to find a swimming beach. Instead we found muddy ditches at the bottom of the canyon.   And, come to find out that Shasta has never been much of a swimming lake, more of a boating lake; news to me.

Lake Shasta

Swimming selfie

Instead we ended up driving 40 minutes away into uncharted territory to try to find somewhere to swim and we sure found it! Whiskeytown lake is found 10 miles outside of the town of Redding and even though it was a bit of a drive from our camping spot, it ended up being worth the drive.  

Whiskey town has a great looking swimming beach and the lake water is clear which I have never really seen with lakes in this area, most are muddy looking with very little visibility. This one reminded me of higher elevation lakes.  We swam for a while and tried our luck at some more fishing but we didn’t even get bites. We plan on coming back to the gem of a lake at some point int the future. Going to have to come back to figure this lake out!

Whiskeytown Lake

To Be Continued...

Random Updates

Good news, I made it out of the wilderness and back into civilization! For those of you who don’t know, I was camping out at Usal Beach in Mendocino County this weekend.  I am in the process of writing a post on that entire experience including a bit on the history of this tradition. 

Another cool thing that happened was that Bryan over at the Rogue Outdoors sent me more flies! This guy is a class act, I can’t say enough about him!  I asked him about catching carp and what does he do, he sends me a bunch of carp flies! I don’t know much about tying but Bryan ties some amazing flies.  They look like amazing quality and with spring already upon us, I look forward to slaying some fish with them very soon!  Thanks again Bryan! 

And last but not least, very soon there will be an addition to the family! NO I’m not talking about a baby! Lol I’m talking about a new fly rod. Now I must admit I didn’t do a ton of research on this product… I saw the name, the weight and the price and I went for it. I have been looking for an 8-9 weight rod and reel for a bit now. I want to get into some large bass, carp, striper, steelhead, etc. so I figured I would get myself an 8 weight to toss out some heavier poppers and also have a little more backbone in case I catch the big one! Plus I wanted an extra setup in case I wanted to teach somebody else how to fly fish. Also, I just wanted a new fly rod, who am I kidding?

I saw an ad for a Redington Crosswater Outfit. Honestly I just saw Redington and jumped all over it. It was cheap and it had more positive reviews than negative ones. The negative reviews seemed to be more user mistakes than defective rods so I went for it. After researching a bit more I came to find out that this combo only has a 1 year warranty as opposed to most other Redington products which have a lifetime warranty. Also I saw a very solid review from an experienced angler that made me think I made a good choice. 

The combo is a “beginner combo,” which I kinda dislike mainly because of the label, “beginner. “ My pride tries to tell me that I’m better than a beginner because a beginner has no idea what they are doing and I do , but honestly, I am a beginner. The first time I held a fly fishing outfit was last may and it wasn’t until August that I bought my first combo. Furthermore I have never even touched anything above a 6 weight so A beginner combo is perfect for right now. Nonetheless it is a handsome combo and it comes with a carrying case so I'm excite to receive it!  I guess if anything is going to go wrong with it I should find out within a year. Plus when I outgrow it I can always sell it or gift it and buy one of those super expensive combos for “advanced” anglers. Until then It looks like Excalibur (my name for my other fly rod) is going to have a brother! Yes, I am that nut that names his fly rods. 

Anyway, that’s it for me, Usal post coming soon! Hopefully some fishing posts will come soon as I am able to get out on the water.  Thanks for reading!