You expect to read about great places to fish in a fly-fishing magazine, but this story is going to be a little different. Specific information about great Modoc and Lassen County stillwater fisheries will be given where appropriate, more than enough to satisfy most anglers. But there are other places, special places, that will only be hinted at in hopes that some of you will be inspired to seek them out for yourselves. To that end, you’ll also find a few strategies pointing you toward your very own road less traveled.
There are certain places too fragile or too (dare I say it?) sacred to ever be written about or publicized. It’s one thing for a fishery to be loved and cherished, but it’s also possible to love a place to death. This must never happen. Too much information does anglers a disservice by robbing them of one of the most cherished aspects of fly fishing, the opportunity for discovery. Luckily, even in a state as populous as California, there are still plenty of remote fishing Shangri-Las tucked into the empty corners and margins far away from crowds. Once found, these are the ones spoken of only in hushed tones, perhaps around a campfire with good friends and old liquor.
Lassen and Modoc Counties seem like part of a different California. Where people are concerned, much of the landscape is conspicuously empty. The flatlands resemble an extension of the Owens Valley, with low, sagebrush-covered expanses and few trees, part of an arid landscape reaching up through central Oregon and eastern Washington. The mountainous areas are verdant, green, and thickly forested. You’re hardly surprised to see deer, distant herds of antelope, bachelor flocks of sandhill cranes, or solitary bald eagles staring at you brazenly from atop gnarled fence posts. On a map, the Cas-
cade range and the Warner Mountains rise from the landscape, painting pine tree green patches on an otherwise white background pockmarked with seductive blue spots. This article is about those blue spots.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife stocks a number of Lassen and Modoc County lakes, but the vast majority are silent questions waiting to be answered. Many of these contain healthy populations of wild rainbows, browns, or brook trout.
It’s safe to assume that you will need some kind of watercraft to fish most places, whether it’s of the hard-hulled variety, a pontoon boat, or a float tube. Wading anglers cannot cover enough water (or any, in many places) to make it a sound strategy. Boats or prams are appropriate on larger bodies of water, but I personally prefer smaller, more intimate places better accessed with pontoon boats or float tubes. There are also a number of hike-in lakes, accessed by treks that rule out even the use of pontoon boats.
Lassen County
Due east of Shasta County, Lassen County is where Susanville and Eagle Lake are located. Getting to Lassen usually means driving east on Highways 36, 44, or 299. Once you’re in Lassen, the main north-south arteries are Highways 139 and 395.
Named for Peter Lassen, eighteenth-century trapper, explorer, and guide for General John C. Fremont, Lassen County claimed only around thirty-five thousand residents in the 2010
