The Northern California Fly Fishing Board

I have been given the chore of arranging an outing for 2011 for a group of friends that I fish with, and the preference this year is to fish stillwater this Spring somewhere with lodging/food accommodations. I have some personal experience at a few places, but have not been to several others that I have read about.

I have fished Rock Creek Lake and Lake Christine a couple times, but am interested in other spots aside from what the Fly Shop runs. Henderson Springs is one that I am interested in. I have only driven past the gate while fishing the Pit. Anyone with personal experience that wouldn't mind sharing is appreciated. My goal is to not have anyone telling me, "we should have gone to such and such instead", but reality is I can't please everyone. I just want to make sure I don't go somewhere that others may have had a bad experience at. Thanks in advance.

Matt

Fished Henderson a couple of years ago with excellent success. You can arrange for dinners to be cooked for you but you cannot use the kitchen in the lodge. There is a separate small cabin there that is also rented out in which you can cook but not sure how many it holds. Fishing was very good with all the usual flies from #6 buggers to #20 midges. Not sure how it is holding up now.

Hi HardHat,
I have hosted a Henderson Springs trip for a group of friends. The property is beautiful. There are five lakes full of eager trout. Mark Henderson does a great job on maintaining the property.

If you want to have meals prepared for you, Mark's friend, Martha, can do the catering for you. She makes a great roast.

Pardon the expression. Henderson is a whorehouse for fishing. You pay the money, and you get fish. Mark has different strains of Rainbow Trout. There are some 30+" Kamloops strain Rainbows. There are some triploids up to 24".

I did not make a 2010 trip, but one of my friends did in February. His group had a great time. For whatever reason, the fish were holding deeper. Instead of stripping flies with floating or slime lines, they resorted to full sink type 3 lines. Some did well with deep water midging.

AB

Not sure if Sugar Creek is still open. It's SW of Yreka, North of Lewiston. Has 3 or four large ponds, float tubable, and some kind of lodging. Don't know about food. last time I fished it was a while ago, but there were plenty of fish and plenty of nice ones.

Sugar Creek affords various opportunities with the 5 or so ponds available. Each pond is unique, so fish them all. You'll find Catch and release long handled nets at each and every pond. Not sure if they are strategically located near the productive water, but we highly suspected it. Sugar Creek is located in the Scott River Valley. There is an active gravel quarry adjacent to the property. If you don't mind the rock and gravel separator and conveyor system right behind you on some of the ponds the fishing will be fine. The lodging is very nice with full kitchen and cable/satellite big screen TV. The rooms have fresh linen on the beds and are stripped off on the last day of your stay. There is a gas fired BBQ on the deck as well. They even have an honor system fly shop inside the cabin. We just threw on lasagna in the oven, set the oven timer, and fished until dark. Be forewarned that the Scott River Valley was dredged back during the hey day and all that remains is the piles of rock and gravel. The area is best accessed from Interstate 5 around Gazelle over the road from Lewiston in the winter. The photos of larger fish are not representative of the fish you will catch. Stripped leaches fished deep worked best. Dries will work if fish start working on the surface. You can drive right up to every pond via gravel and dirt roads on the property. Bring everything that you will need as services are pretty slim locally. I think the owners have done an admirable job, if not quite a bit of work in developing the property.

The day you arrive allows you trespass rights on the ponds. We weren't aware of that on our first trip. If you haven't fished these ponds before, it is worth investigating.

Another option is Sawmill Lake located on the North Star property just South of Martis Valley. Four anglers per day. There is no lodging on the property, so you have to stay in Truckee and access the lake each day. Snow dictates when the lake opens, sometime in June. You can fish the lake from the shore, but most do so via float tubes, etc.

Hope this helps.