My dad was and is a great hunter and a good fisherman. He is 82 now and not getting around quite as well as he used to, but I have memories of when he could get around very well indeed.
The Pit River used to be a mighty, wild, remote and scenic river. This story comes from the 60s just before some of it was lost forever beneath dams. The stretch I am talking about was above Shasta Dam near the town of McCloud. Dad knew that the dam was being raised and this would be our only chance to fish this river, which had a reputation for having HUGE Rainbow Trout in it.
To prepare for this trip, Dad, my brother Daniel and I went to Cache Creek over by Clear Lake to our “world famous” hellgrammite hunting grounds. This place is different from any other I have ever seen, as the hellgrammites live under rocks on the shore, not in the creek. And they are bigger and uglier than any other I have ever seen too. We caught a ton of them that day for our big trip.
We camped overlooking the river with a great plan to wake up before dawn and follow the rough trail to the mighty Pit just at daybreak. It was early spring and very cold that night. The next morning we discovered that our prized bait was frozen solid in the bait box. We were horrified, but we had brought some spinners, so we trudged ahead.
The river was a long way down, but we were young. Dad must have been in his late 30s so he could still do more than most men, and Daniel and I were teenagers, so there was no problem there. As we got closer we began to hear a dull roar, which got louder and louder as we descended. When we saw the river, it was so huge and fast that Dad panicked and didn’t want us boys to go anywhere near it. We were going to watch Dad fish until we got to a safer spot, so he started to rig up. I opened up the bait box just to see what was left of the hellgrammites, and I could not believe my eyes. The suckers had come back to life! This excited and bewildered all of us. Those things were as solid as ice before, and now here they were wiggling around, looking for something to bite.
The river was too high. You couldn’t get your bait down long enough to do any good. Dad caught a couple, but it was tough. At least we had that fantastic story to tell. On the way back to the trail that lead us to the top of the hill, we passed through a camp. In the campsite, on a rope strung between two trees was a BIG fish. From afar I thought it was a Salmon, but it turned out to be a Rainbow Trout. It was the biggest Rainbow I had ever seen and even to this day I have not seen a bigger one. That would have been enough to make us swear to come back later in the spring, but alas, the dam rose and wiped that stretch of river out forever. Some thing were just not meant to be.
