Hat Creek Fishing

Fishing on the lower and upper sections of Hat Creek. The upper is considered above Baum and follows highway 89 up to the Old Station area. This section is mainly a stocked put and take area and the public fishing is upstream from the bridge along highway 89. The lower section is below Baum, though a little bit downstream from there below the Pit #2 powerhouse. And within this lower section, the river can be divided between above and below highway 299. The section above highway 299 is the "famous" section where the powerhouse riffle is and where spring creek dry fly fishing Hat Creek is known for is location (carbon flats).

The section below highway 299 wasn't very good. Didn't see many fish in the ultra clear water and it was surprisingly shallow and fast moving, except for the part where it hits a small spillway before entering the lake downstream. I did see two good sized fish which I spooked in the shallows, in this deeper water near the lake. I caught a lot of 6-8" fish here before moving on. I didn't bother fishing the faster water upstream as it seemed to hold very poor holding water. This whole section was maybe 1.5 miles I am guessing. I next made my way up to the section above hwy 299. 

The section above hwy 299 was an impressive spring creek. Too bad it has fallen on hard times as it used to be one of the best spring creeks in the west. There are still fish in here but there aren't many and they are a lot of small fish. I did spot a couple of very large fish while looking down from a small cliff, but they were nearly impossible to reach as the water was deep right to the bank. My attempt to reach them failed. They seemed to be feeding on midges along the bottom in 6-8 ft of water.

​I did catch a somewhat rare brown trout which surprised me as this river is I believe 90+ percent rainbows. I didn't get to fish the famous PH #2 riffle as an older dude was camping it out for 2+ hours. I didn't see him catch anything, nor did I not see anyone else catching anything. I think I saw baetis flying around and some miniscule midges. Fish were rising here and there.

Upper Hat along hwy 89 was disappointing. I was expecting to catch tons of stockers and maybe get into some decent wild fish away from the campgrounds but it appeared nothing had been stocked and the wild fish were 2-4". Too bad as the river would be fun to fish with that clear fast water in the narrow creek bed. Wish they would have a delayed harvest section here as it just gets wiped out fast after each stocking. Any wild fish of decent side don't have much a chance. This is a very popular catch n keep section.