Summertime is the best time to fish Shasta Lake in my opinion.  Stable weather patterns and a defined temperature split (thermocline) conveniently push Shasta's big rainbow and brown trout into the ZONE and make them both easy to find and easy to catch.  Summertime will reveal the presence of millions of small/tiny Shad in lower sections of Shasta Lake and all the fish species within will feed with reckless abandon making them quite easy to catch.  A good sonar unit and a temperature probe will help with the clues needed to get your gear where its going to get bit.  Its actually pretty obvious where to place your gear in the water column but continuous days on the water help a lot with that too.  A rule I live by this time of the year is to get your gear at the top of and the bottom of the bait balls when we start marking them.  Right now the trout are still pretty high in the water column and so are the Shad.  Still pretty high to be marking them but I can assure you they are there. The best action is coming from the 30' foot mark, give or take a few feet.  We are catching trout a bit deeper but most are coming from the top tier of the water column.  As an example, I caught a big brown last week at 100' deep.  Now, its important to mention that the King salmon fishing on Shasta this year has been really good as well.  I'm running salmon gear (8" Pro-Trolls and Brads Super Baits) down to 75' in the early morning and pushing down to 100'-115' later in the day for all my King salmon bites.  Its nothing to catch 10 smaller Kings every day and we're seeing some 5-8 lb specimens being caught too.  Its been a while since we've seen King fishing this good for second year salmon indicating the salmon fishing should be good again next year and the Kings will be bigger.  The main channels from the Pit River Bridge to the dam have been good but don't hesitate to look around the big points and even the backs of the lower lake arms for feeding Kings.  The marinas can be really good too!  Trolling speeds from 2.0-2.5 mph have been good for me but fish will be caught on either side of those numbers as well. The lake overall is in great shape and water conditions are great with clean water and very little debris now.  If you have been waiting for the right time to make the trip up to Shasta, I'd say now is a good time.  The great fishing on Shasta will hold up through early October before the lake begins to see the fall changes which does make the fishing a bit more challenging.  By Thanksgiving the late fall/winter patterns set up and we have some good winter fishing most years if water conditions hold up well.  I'll be fishing Shasta through the end of the year and will periodically submit reports to all of my media platforms.  Thank you!

Captain Jeff Goodwin