Iron Canyon Fishing - Northern California
November 9 through 11
I journeyed up to Iron Canyon Reservoir in Northern California for two and one half days of lake fishing and camping. Iron Canyon is a PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric) lake that is mainly filled by an underground aqueduct and is used for hydroelectric production. The water comes from McCloud Lake about 20 miles to the North, and empties into the Pit River and becomes part of the Pit River hydroelectric project.
It is stocked with trout during the Spring and Summer, but has a great population of large holdover rainbows and big Brown Trout. Surface fly fishing for Rainbows from a boat or personal water craft is usually productive in Spring, Summer, and Fall. On this trip, things were quiet so I never put our Flycraft in the water and ended just fishing from shore.
I had a productive morning on Thursday when I arrived, landing 8 or 10 fish, with three decent size browns in the 15 inch range. All released alive except one 15 inch Rainbow that I kept. I fished for about 4 hours at the spot where the underground aqueduct comes in which is alway a good spot when the water is flowing.
Went back to the same spot Friday morning but the inflow wasn't running and fishing was slow. I did hook three fish but lost them all. I'll blame that on barbless hooks. :) The masses showed up Friday night and there were people camping in dispersed places all around the lake. I spent a few hours Saturday morning trying different places, but couldn't find any willing fish. I decided to pack up and make the 4 hour drive back home.
All in all, a great three days camping and fishing in our beautiful Northern California Trout Mecca.
