About Hat Creek

Hat Creek is located about an hour and a half northeast of Redding on California Highway 299 near Burney, a blue-collar lumber town reminiscent of what all trout towns used to look like before urbanites with money arrived to build ski resorts and turn Main Street stores into expensive boutiques and T-shirt shops for tourists. Burney remains much the same as it was in the 1960s, home to individuals who in most cases grew up there. Burney sits on a pretty plateau surrounded by forests of lush conifers; an extinct volcanic cinder cone appropriately named Burney Mountain overlooks the town.

Hat Creek originates on the slopes of Mount Lassen, the southernmost active volcano in the United States, and runs for about 40 miles to its confluence with Lake Britton. Because it courses through a porous lava rock substrate, Hat Creek is fed by many springs that keep it cool in summer and warm in winter, and it runs at a steady flow year-round. 

The most famous section of the creek is known as the Powerhouse 2 riffle. The name refers to the PG&E powerhouse that sits at the upstream boundary of the special-regulations section and supplies a steady flow of water to the creek below. The section flows over lava substrate for about 100 yards and then flattens into a wide, slow-moving flow—a classic spring creek—for a couple of miles until it becomes a freestone flow again at the lower end. It is accessible by car, with a parking lot overlooking the riffle.

About a mile downstream from the powerhouse section is Carbon Flats, also served by a convenient parking area. Most of the lower stretch, which is north of where Highway 299 crosses the creek, is no longer accessible by vehicle, so to get to the riffle at the lower end of the creek, you turn north onto a dirt road just before you get to the county park next to the bridge. After a short distance, you will come to a parking area, from where you will have to hoof it for about 0.25 mile to get to the riffle.

The 100-yard-long freestone section of water just below the powerhouse holds some of the biggest fish-mostly Rainbows and some Browns- along with lots of aquatic food to sustain them. It gets lots of pressure from both the knowledgeable anglers who drift nymphs through its seams and pockets and those who take advantage of the relatively shallow water to cross to the other side.  Hat Creek is famous for its multiple hatches, and the fish can rapidly switch from one insect to another or one life stage to another.