Fishing Access to the Pit River With the Higher Flows

The Pit River has had a long history of exciting fishing experience. The flow along the pit 5 section contains only rainbow trout. These trout were originally steelhead trout, the land with the construction of Shasta Dam was closed in 1938. These fish are extremely difficult to catch, because the river is full of rocks and strong currents, they are able to dive into columns and break the line.


The Pit River is the longest river in California and is the spring with a drop of 2800 feet altitude between Fall River and Shasta Lake fed. That made it very attractive for power generation in hydro power plants without the use of large dams. There are six hydroelectric plants on the river, fishing, three of which were in a canyon and are very interesting, the area between the dams discharge pipe. Historically 99% of the water in the river was diverted into tunnels for the generators. Be released in 1980, the licensing of facilities by the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) minimum flows of 150 cubic feet per second (CFS) in the Pit 3,4,5 sections needed. This greatly improves the quality of the fishery.
Since these sections are in a very steep ravine, was the easiest method of fishing by wading the river from the access point to access point. The blocks make wading difficult, but also makes for excellent fishing pocket water. When the river was at 150 CFS could wade across the river quite easily. The new licenses in 2005 required PG & E. To the currents in the mine section 5 increase to 520 CFS. Before the final decision release level, professional fishing guides were hired to a person's ability to test to wade the river at different flows of traffic and it was found that a flow above made it impossible to wade across the river from 250 CFS. Work on the dam was last winter in 2011.
This constant flow of the river have higher wet edge to the cliff edge and made it impossible to wade through the middle of the river and brush the edges makes walking very difficult. The flow in the middle of the river is very fast run, about seven miles per hour.
Fortunately, the Swift Current also makes the fish to come to the edge where the flow is less. They try to hide from the rocks in the eddy current and wait for food to pass by in the current that cuts to the boulder. The key to catching these fish is cast upstream and let the current swing the fly or lure the bait in front of the rock (where a fish can idle away).
Access into the pit 5 section is a problem that the countries are on the edge of the river, private, while in the pit 4 section of the country are on the edge of the river by the U.S. Forest Service property and public land. The access problem is going to change very soon. Pacific Gas & Electric has its corporate strategy given lands along the river from the town of Big Bend to the Pit 5 Dam to the plans California Department of Forestry to develop the area for a demonstration forest with the public use along the river.
Another option is to use a float tube to move from one place to another. Children hover long in this section rubber hoses all summer.
No matter how you go into the water, the fish are there, are energetic fighter and give the fisherman all the thrills.