The past few years of extreme drought in California left this state dry, dry, dry, and dry conditions makes for a tender box of fire availability, and yep, the fires raged on.
What does all this fire stuff have to do with bass fishing? Here in northern California many of those fires ravaging the state were in the drainage area of the rivers and streams that fill Lake Shasta . The rains finally came, and lots of debris from these burned spots flowed into the streams along with lots of just plain dry stuff from the years of no water, and made March the beginning of driftwood danger for bass anglers on Shasta Lake.
Lake Shasta is huge, and has some driftwood on it every winter/spring. This past spring featured the most driftwood on the lake that I have witnessed in all my years since 1958. To see major arms of the lake completely blanketed with driftwood was very disconcerting to say the least. By March the lake was nearing full, and the water was rushing in, bringing with it more debris. Bass fishing was getting better, but getting to them was very risky and a bit dangerous.
Don and I got out on the lake about once a week through March, but I had the bug and was going out a couple of times more each week. I was catching a bunch of fish, and looking for a whopper.
I began using a second rod for the first time. Keeping a soft plastic bait in the water is key to catching fish, as mentioned in a previous post. The mudpie tube was working great, but I added a green pumpkin for the second rod. The green pumpkin was hooking more fish, but the mudpie was hooking larger, better quality fish.
The launch facility at Shasta Dam is only 5 minutes from my home, but the driftwood there made it impossible to launch. The Pit River arm of the lake has always been known for great bass fishing, so I began launching at Jones Valley.
Although there was less driftwood at Jones Valley launch, the difficulty and hazards were still present. A big piece of driftwood tore out my trailer wiring harness. I fixed it and kept launching here though throughout the whole month of March and most of April.
The driftwood from the ramp to the main channel was manageable. The thing was driftwood continued so all the way up the Pit. Turtle slow speeds for safety was extremely time consuming, and frustrating, but hauling tail sent a lot of props for repair at Phil’s Propeller in Pine Grove, and the air fouled with colorful language!
The bass bite really picked up as the lake level rose, the air temperatures warmed the water to the mid-fifties, and the pre-spawn started. I was still using the tubes, but added a drop shot worm in some places.
Even though Lake Shasta is not known as an angler in the know place to go for big bass, the lake is huge with an enormous amount of bait to help these spotted bass to grow in epic proportions. The main problem is where to find them, and I hope these articles will help. A dedicated bass angler can find big spots on Lake Shasta, absolutely!
Beware coming here for pre-spawn though. The driftwood was miserable this last spring, and I don’t see it being much better this coming year. If California gets another normal rainfall year, all of the driftwood stranded high on the shoreline will migrate back out into the lake when the lake fills. Use caution, and good sense when navigating, and most importantly plan for the extra time to do so for a fun filled trip on this under appreciated beautiful lake.
Stay tuned for where we found fish, up next.
Mr Ho