Shasta Scrapbook Memories

Kathie Morgan with guide Pat Young.by Kathie Morgan

“I CAUGHT THE LAST LARGEMOUTH BASS TAKEN FROM LAKE SHASTA,” I told Barbara back at the dock. It was a true enough statement when I made it. Others were catching spotted bass, but locals told me that my little largemouth was “rare” in a lake where the more aggressive spotted bass are successfully competing against their meeker cousins.

Memories of Shasta Past merge easily with those I brought home in October. The rain that began during the night before my recent fishing trip with Pat Young forms rivulets with the rain that fell on earlier trips – and never has the rain dampened my enjoyment. Back then, Bill Tuch was my teacher, and I still practice the many tips he taught me about where to find the fish and how to present the bait. This time I still had much to learn, and my guide was equally entertaining, enlightening and patient with me.

Lake Shasta is California’s largest man-made lake, with nearly 370 miles of shoreline, and it is home to a diverse population of fish species. For some reason, I have never fished there for anything but bass. Back in the 90s, we targeted smallmouths. I learned to watch for gravel banks that extended down into the water, a tip that David and I still use when fishing Lake Sonoma. Pat refined the tip to point out different colors of seams within the rocks. “See that darker colored layer? Cast there.”

I did, and I shook my worm just once when I felt the tug. Hold my breath, okay now, set the hook. Fish on! After a bit of a tussle, a 2-1/2 pound spotty was wriggling in the net, our biggest fish of the day. Pat outfished me by at least three to one, and all our fish were spots except for that one largemouth. 

Where have all the smallmouth gone? I know Bill and I left a few in the water last time we fished together. According to the US Geological Survey’s Non-indigenous Aquatic Species researchers, smallmouth bass will hybridize with spotted bass wherever the two species share the same habitat. So maybe …

Wildlife watching can be excellent at Lake Shasta. Eagles are a good bet. And one rainy morning when the sun came out, I saw my first western tanager, identified for me by my friend Tom Stienstra. 

Tom also taught me the name of those flying saucer-shaped clouds – lenticular. Mt. Shasta, that compelling white volcano overlooking the lake, generates lenticulars then basks in the glow of their luminous halos.

We saw no lenticulars in October. Through the rain that fell constantly, we saw only ghosts of fog that wandered up the canyons and into the forests. Having launched at Jones Valley, we were fishing the famed Pit River arm, one of the four main arms that make up the lake. In the spring, Bill had told me, schools of shad descend into the Pit arm, and on one sparkling morning I saw baitballs like those I knew from ocean fishing, and had just as much action from casting to them. 

Even though it was fall, Pat and I saw a few balls of shad, and one of our bass coughed up a half dozen of the silvery creatures. It was enough to make me swap my worm for a few casts with chrome rattletrap, hope springing eternal.

But the hours had escaped us. The witching hour of 3 pm had arrived and the fairytale boat would soon turn into a pumpkin. Lake Shasta offers an enchanted world no matter the season.

I’ll be looking for you on the banks.