Camping & Fishing Shasta Lake at Hirz Bay
A good camping trip with close friends never fails to heal the soul. It just hits different. Driving up to Shasta Lake for a weekend of camping and fishing was no exception to this rule.
As a San Francisco resident it's safe to say that if I don't get out of the city enough then I will unfortunately go clinically insane. Maybe it's because I grew up in a quiet suburb and I'll never get used to the commotion. Or maybe it's the lack of sleep due to the friendly neighborhood tweakers that like to scream outside the liquor store below my apartment. It's truly one of life's great mysteries.
Anyways, I got off work early Friday to rip up to Shasta. If you've ever driven north from SF/Marin County on a Friday you know how critical it is to clear Vallejo and Fairfield before it's too late. I have spent too much of my life sitting on that godforsaken marsh highway they call the 37.
Our first stop on the trip was the Redding Costco, about 3 and a half hours north of San Francisco. This was also about 40 minutes from our campsite so it was a perfect point to say goodbye to civilization for the weekend. There's also a Walmart in Redding in case you're not one of the Costco Guys.
From there we drove up towards the lake and into the site. I honestly could not have been happier with our campground at Hirz Bay. We made it just in time to set up camp and enjoy a view of Shasta Lake before losing the light. The only issue was our bear locker was missing the tool to fully close it, so we had to secure it with our truck's ratchet strap instead. There's service here too in case you want to watch Instagram reels instead of take in the scenery.
Thankfully no bears came anyway, and with the help of our friend Michelob Ultra we slept very heavily through the night.
As dawn broke the next day it was on - the whole point of this trip was to get some good fishing in. I guess "good" is a relative term. We headed down to the shore where I caught my only fish that day: a small spotted bass that I didn't bother taking a picture of since I knew bigger fish were coming. Sike.
At least the weather was nice, and we got some swimming in when we abandoned fishing our chosen coastline. We decided a change of pace was in order, so we piled into the truck to drive North and fish the McCloud River.
Fun fact - the McCloud River is widely considered to be the "home" of the rainbow trout due to the establishing of the very first national fish hatchery there and subsequent export of trout across the world.
You'd think that would have boded well for us anglers but this was not the case. At this point I think we may have been having bad luck or just suck at fishing. Either way it was just absolutely picturesque out there, fish or no fish.
After getting skunked we piled back into the truck and headed back to Hirz Bay. There was a boat ramp nearby and we figured we'd try our luck launching a couple kayaks. We quickly ran into a literal roadblock, however, as a landslide had completely blocked the road back.
It's good fortune that nobody was driving on that stretch. A couple massive trees laid where just a couple hours ago there had been a clear road. Fires above the road have burnt out many of the trees, so it's really no surprise that this happened.
As more and more people got out of their cars to take a look at the carnage we realized we had a group of 10 or so guys in good shape. So we got to work, rolling as many of the logs and branches out of the roadway as we could. Eventually our savior, a local with a chainsaw, rolled up and dismantles enough of the tree to where we could clear a lane. This was a really cool display of how people can come together to fix problems without the help of any government or corporation.
When we finally got back it was dusk, which means the fish were ready to feed baby! I hopped in a kayak and swapped my fly rod for my trusty $40 Ugly Stik with a lure. I thought it would be easier to manage from the water and I figured this was it: this was where I was going to catch the freak.
My friend immediately caught a nice spotted bass from shore. All of our hopes soared higher. 30 minutes later, nobody had landed a fish. They were out there alright - I watched some unfortunate drowning crickets get pulled below the surface by bloodthirsty fish. Maybe I should have stayed on the fly rod.
I did get some bites on my spoon, but alas I did not land a fish. I did get some killer views of the lake, and I love kayaking around anyway. If I had stayed out a bit longer as we really got into dusk I bet you I woulda caught something too. My buddies were tired though, and we wanted to cook up our Costco steak before it got too dark. We had fished for about 6 hours that day and I wasn't going to keep dragging them with me through my fishing misadventures.
Thus concluded our trip up to Shasta Lake. Too long didn't read? Hirz Bay Campground is a 10/10 and I suck at fishing. There are fish though! My buddy was using Fishbrain on the drive home and I think we should've checked that out beforehand.
Thanks for reading! If you're in California and like weekend trips subscribe for more adventures, you won't regret it.