The Decline and Rise of the Fishery
In the early '80s, things began to change on Hat Creek. Fingers of gray sediment accumulated behind weedbeds in the run below the Powerhouse riffle. The weedbeds themselves started to disappear beneath the encroaching sediment. As the lush aquatic vegetation disappeared, the hatches grew less profuse and particular species declined sharply. It became possible to wade many parts of the flatwater and it was common to see anglers in the water. This gave us access to more fish and for a while, masked the overall decline. By 1993, the sediment slug had moved from below the Powerhouse Riffle down into the Carbon run and the decline in hatches and the general shallowing of the creek became impossible to ignore.
Hat Creek in the '90s was characterized by complaints and finger pointing, studies and meetings, fanciful dredging schemes, all set against a backdrop of a profoundly degraded fishery. Gone were the nearly 3,000 fish per mile counts in the flatwater, common in the '70s and '80s. Shallow water, sparce weed beds, diminished hatches and mostly small fish discouraged anglers. Hat no longer drew the dedicated dry fly enthusiasts anxious to test their skill against the toughest trout in the West. It was remarkable to witness the impact of Hat's decline on eastern Shasta County business. Tourism fell off markedly and fly shops in the nearby communities struggled to stay afloat.
Hat Creek's decline coincided with the re-watering of the Pit River below Lake Britton. The rush to develop California's hydroelectric potential in the '20s hadn't considered the impacts on fish and wildlife. With the completion of the dam in 1926 (and trading consideration of a fish ladder for the construction of a hatchery on Burney Creek), the flow into the River was simply cut off and all the water piped directly to the Pit 3 Powerhouse. This left six miles of river bed dry. Only the occasional springs and Rock Creek's flow provided enough water to maintain a small population of bugs and native rainbows in the lower couple of miles.
In 1986, through the efforts of CalTrout and the state and federal fisheries agencies, 150 cubic feet per second of water began flowing down the Pit 3 reach once again. Virtually overnight we had a new and fabulously productive trout fishery just 15 minutes from Hat Creek. Even better, it was a fishery that didn't require the very high level of fishing skill that Hat demanded. The challenge lay, instead, in learning to wade the boulder-strewn riverbed. It was a welcome distraction from the problems on Hat Creek. The sediment slug and its source and solution seemed insurmountable problems at the time. The opinions and proposed solutions were many. We wrung our hands, lamented the decline and headed off to the Pit, where we had discovered that we might reliably catch fat Pit River rainbows all day long, all season long.
"Anglers who fell under its spell came to regard their time on Hat Creek less as a fishing trip and more as a pilgrimage."