Lake Almanor

Overview

Lake Almanor is Pacific Gas and Electric's reservoir on the North Fork Feather River, formed when Canyon Dam flooded the meadow the Maidu called Nakam-Koyo, Big Meadows, just south of Chester in Plumas County; the present dam dates to 1926. It covers about 28,000 acres, 13 miles long and seven wide, with Lassen Peak on the skyline. The North Fork Feather comes in on the north side, the Hamilton Branch on the southeast, and Big Springs in the northeast corner pours in several hundred cubic feet per second of cold water, which is why trout have somewhere to go in August. Hamilton Branch is an inlet, not a river below the lake; everything leaves through Canyon Dam. Almanor holds big rainbows and browns, the landlocked Chinook salmon CDFW plants (there are no kokanee here), smallmouth bass and the wakasagi pond smelt everything eats. The calendar is the fishery. From late February into May the blood midge is the main diet and indicator chironomid fishing over the shallow mud around Canyon Dam and Goose Bay is the game. From mid-June into July the Hexagenia limbata hatch, the size 6 mayfly that made the lake famous, comes off at dusk over mud shoals on the west shore, peaking within two weeks either side of the solstice; fish nymphs from late afternoon and switch to dries as the light goes. July and August push trout to the springs and the Hamilton Branch mouth, where a damsel hatch runs by the weed beds. September and early October are pond smelt season, when spawning smelt over 12 to 15 feet of mud bring the biggest browns up.