I’ve always loved fishing cabins. I discovered their charms as a boy when my father rented a rickety place on a mosquito-infested lake in Minnesota. Although he was an avid bass angler, he seldom caught any, but it never seemed to bother him. I thought that was pretty strange, but I understood later that he was delighted to be away from the office, glad for the meditative calm of the lake and the quiet of the woods. He felt at one with nature, just as I did when I became a fly fisher in California.
Ever since that boyhood trip, I’ve counted on a fishing cabin to cure my blues. If I’m feeling stymied or just plain bored, I grab a fly rod and head for the mountains to find a retreat. That’s hardly unique, of course. Fly fishers have been escaping to cabins since the days of Izaak Walton, whose good friend, Charles Cotton, owned a “fishing temple” on the River Dove in Derbyshire. The archive photos show a stone building with a peaked roof that suggests an Asian influence. You might see something similar in Malaysia or Thailand. It consisted of a single room with a big fireplace where Cotton and Walton convened before a day’s outing.
Cotton never held a proper job, but he wrote bawdy verses and a popular guide to gambling on dice, cards, cock fights, and other games of chance. He and Walton began with a breakfast of strong ale, then filled their pipes with tobacco to gather the strength to “wield their rods.” Trout rods were heavy in the 17th century, solid wood and five or six yards long. Cotton urged his friend to fish “fine and far off,” advice still worth heeding. He kept track of the hatches and once witnessed a cloud of stoneflies, noting that the river was “all over circles” as the trout rose to gorge on the insects.
If you happen to be in England, you can rent Cotton’s temple and his beat on the Dove for a hundred dollars or so per day. The trout are brown, small, wily, and tough to catch. We don’t have anything so historic in California, where the desire for a wilderness retreat didn’t emerge until the last half of the 19th century. Among the earliest was Salmon Lake Lodge in Sierra County. It opened for business shortly after George McGee and his wife settled in the area around 1880. McGee had contracted a bad case of gold fever and installed a Pelton-wheel-powered mill to crush the gold-bearing quartz he was after. His wife was more practical. She established a resort with cabins on the northeast shore of the lake. The guests from the Bay Area, known as “down below,” took a Western Pacific train up the Feather River Canyon to Blairsden, a thrilling trip for flatlanders who’d never seen the Sierra Nevada. From Blairsden, they rode a buckboard to Salmon Lake and felt as if they’d traveled a thousand miles from civilization. The fly fishing could be superb, although the brookies, browns, and rainbows were stocked and didn’t grow to any size. Today, you’ll find some native browns, rainbows, and brookies among the hatchery fish.
Salmon Lake Lodge threw costume parties and held a Grand Masquerade every summer. George McGee hosted a big fireworks display on the Fourth of July and served a Forty Niner Flapjack to any child celebrating a birthday. (Vanilla was the secret ingredient.) The guests must’ve enjoyed the festivities, but I’d rather not attend a costume party on my fishing vacation. I picture a scene like an outtake from Deadwood with folks posing as card sharps, gunslingers, and dance hall girls, and I want to run the other way. Give me the solitude of Minnesota, where nobody asked me to dress up or eat a Forty Niner flapjack.
I found that solitude in the first cabin I ever rented in California. I’d just arrived in San Francisco from back east and moved into a hippie hovel on Cole Street, only dimly aware I’d migrated to a fly fishing paradise. I bought a cheap 6-weight Fenwick at Dave Sullivan’s on Geary Boulevard and headed for the Trinity Alps to try my luck. I had no idea where I’d bunk for the night, but sometimes it pays to trust in the workings of fate. That’s how I landed in a rustic cabin on Stuart Fork of the Trinity River. The price was eight bucks a day, a bargain even at the time.
True, the cabin wasn’t flawless. It creaked with age. George McGee might’ve built it for a prospector pal. It had an old-fashioned icebox and the tiniest bathroom on earth – no tub or shower either. But there was a weathered redwood deck that extended to the very edge of Stuart Fork, so I dragged out the cot and slept with the river flowing through my dreams. The fishing was fine, too, and ideal for a beginner. I caught thirty or so rainbows over three days, greedy little planters quick to strike attractors like an Elk Hair Caddis or Parachute Adams.
I lived a miner’s life in that cabin. I walked to the general store every morning for my fifty-cent block of ice to keep the milk and beer cold. I swapped the ale-and-tobacco breakfast for fried eggs and bacon in a cast iron skillet with a half-century’s worth of service to its credit. At the tavern in town, I overheard talk of a marauding bear accused of several break-ins over the winter. He snapped up bags of icing sugar and jars of peanut butter, although only the chunky style. All day the loggers worked in the forest, and the clearcuts grew bigger and bigger.
“I lived a miner’s life in that cabin. I walked to the general store every morning for my fifty-cent block of ice to keep the milk and beer cold.”
As fond as I was of the cabin, I missed having a shower. I smelled like a day-old trout at the end of my stay, so when I next visited the Trinity River I found a place on Coffee Creek with a fully equipped, human-size bathroom.
The creek was a joy to fish, still fast-flowing in the early season, its course adhering to a dirt road that wound into a canyon. I hiked through stands of pine and Douglas fir, the only angler on the trail, and cast to likely pools and riffles. I hooked little wild rainbows and a few brookies, but it’s the beauty of the landscape that’s stayed with me.
I gravitate to such small streams for the seclusion. I was fishing Pauley and Lavezzola Creeks in Downieville when I stumbled on my all-time favorite cabin, in fact. At the grocery in town, I spotted an index card on a bulletin board that read, “Cabin for Rent, North Yuba, Rates Negotiable.” The owner turned out to be a fly fisher who worked in tech in Sacramento and didn’t have much free time anymore. It was October, and the crowds had gone home, so he cut me a deal – a week at a reduced rate if I bought my own firewood and left him a good bottle of whiskey for the winter. I bought a top-shelf bourbon in town and found the keys under a mat.
The cabin sat in a grove of firs on a bluff overlooking the wild trout section between Sierra City and Ladies Canyon. It was almost hidden from view, and the trees blocked most of the sun. The nights were very chilly, so I was grateful for that wood. But I could count on much warmer temperatures by midday. That’s when the October Caddis started to hatch, most avidly between eleven and three. The North Yuba isn’t a difficult stream to fish compared to Hat Creek, say, or the Fall, but trophy browns are still scarce. I took three that week, all twenty inches or better and as fat as Thanksgiving turkeys.
I loved hiking up to the cabin when I knocked off on the river in the late afternoon. I sat outside in an old lawn chair until I felt the cold coming on, then moved inside and lit some kindling. The owner had a CD player, and I put on Muddy Waters or a little Coltrane and drank a beer or two before dinner. I ate simple meals, steak and spuds and a salad, or chicken thighs done on the BBQ. Though I lacked a deck, my sleep was deep and satisfying.
I often wonder if the cabin’s still there. The owner might’ve sold it to buy a house in Citrus Heights to raise a family, or maybe he got tired of working so hard and decided to live there permanently. It’s possible, too, that he still rents it, but I didn’t see a notice the last time I visited Downieville. There’s only one thing I know for certain, really. The North Yuba will be open for fishing this summer, and it’s full of trout for the taking.
