Almanor Fishing Association:
After a week of beautiful, warm, summer-like conditions, Plumas County will see cooler wet weather over the next seven days, with chances of snow early in the week. Overnight lows will be in the low thirties and daytime highs in the low fifties, as is typical for this time of year we will also see afternoon winds.
Snow is melting fast as Bailey Creek, the Super Ditch, Hamilton Branch, the North Fork of the Feather, and every little tributary entering Almanor is depositing large volumes of dirty water. Lake level has risen a foot and a half this past week, currently sitting at 4481.16. Inflows into Almanor have almost tripled over the past week, rising from 3,461 (acre feet) last Saturday to 9,302 (acre feet) this Saturday. To put some perspective on our snowpack and the amount of water entering Almanor an acre foot is 325,850 gallons of water, the 9,302 (AF) increase on Saturday equates to 3,031,056,706 gallons of water added to Almanor in a single day (my freshman math teacher would be proud).
Fishing was good early in the week as insects are hatching and water temperatures are rising. Fish are scattered and we continue to catch more browns than rainbows, there are a bunch of one-to-two-pound browns, and they are hungry. Fast, slow, hardware, flies and baits will all work, it’s all about covering ground to find fish. Fish are scattered throughout the water column as well, fish in the top twenty feet early and drop deeper as the sun gets on the water.
Shore anglers are battling the rush of incoming water, as the Super Ditch and Hamilton Branch clear and flows slow, fishing will improve. There were some people fishing off the causeway this past week not sure how they did. The coves around Canyon Dam are your best shot at catching fish from shore. The bass bite has picked up and should only get better, there are tournaments every weekend and the Canyon Dam ramp can get busy on weekends.
Highway 70 remains closed, there is construction work on 32 with minimal delays and 36 is clear. All our campgrounds remain closed, and Canyon Dam is the only usable public ramp.
