Smoky Sierra skies from wildfires

Arnold’s White Pines Lake was a pleasant place to fish for trout on Labor Day weekend, though multiple California wildfires were on editor Chris Cocoles’ mind. (CHRIS COCOLES)

BIG TREES, BAD FIRES A SIERRA FISHING GETAWAY BRINGS BACK MEMORIES AMID DEVASTATING CALIFORNIA BLAZES

By Chris Cocoles

ARNOLD—What I’ll remember most about here are the trees. Huge trees. Trees at the lake I fished. Trees above the spectacular middle fork of the Stanislaus River we hiked. We even stayed in the shadows of Calaveras Big Trees State Park!

And when my sisters, brother-inlaw and our dogs relaxed on the deck of our cabin tucked away on a quiet street in the quaint community of Dorrington, the trees were always on our mind – partly because of the pine cones that kept falling and crashing down around us.

But despite not getting any cell

phone service throughout this peaceful and socially distanced Labor Day weekend, the Wi-Fi at our rental allowed a chance to follow what had become a statewide tragedy. Starting with freak August lightning storms, then an early September heatwave, the Golden State’s fire year became historically bad: 3.7 million acres

burned by over 8,100 wildfires in 2020. My stomach churned, as some of the wildfires were in places where I’ve fished and made so many lasting memories. I’d have plenty of time to ponder them on a Saturday morning.

Though my sisters have zero interest in fishing, they all agreed to get up well before sunrise and tag along when I wanted to try my luck at nearby White Pines Lake, which has been a fairly productive spot to catch planted rainbows.

We drove in the twilight to the lake, taking an unplanned but scenic ride on a dirt road before finally

finding a parking lot and some mostly empty shoreline. Despite it being a holiday weekend – not to mention California’s second free fishing day of the year – the fishing pressure was relatively light at White Pines.

Still, I always have hope fish will bite. In this most forgettable year and feeling pessimistic about the future, holding onto good vibes is a necessity. So, armed with nightcrawlers I’d bought at a Livermore Walmart while we waited to patch a flat tire suffered on Interstate 580, as well as some PowerBait products, I settled in for a long morning of waiting and thinking.

CREEK FIRE: STARTED SEPT. 4 (FRESNO AND MADERA COUNTIES); AT LEAST 305,000 ACRES BURNED AND 955 STRUCTURES DESTROYED When I was in college at Fresno State, my weekends were typical of most college students – from dorm parties to football games at Bulldog Stadium to trips home for free laundry and a home-cooked meal.

Also, grabbing my fishing rod and joining a friend for a quick road trip up Highway 168 to Shaver Lake. Once, my buddy Larry and I caught a few trout and a catfish, packed them in our cooler with a little bit of ice and then headed back to Fresno.

Upon returning to our on-campus dorm at Baker Hall, we were stunned to see that the catfish was still alive and well, thrashing around the cooler. As dumb college students are prone to do, we had a brilliant idea. We decided to tote the cooler across campus and let the fish loose in the fountain that’s a meeting place for Fresno State students. Of course, since it was a Sunday it was quiet. But we highfived while watching that channel cat swim again before scooping it back out and eventually frying it up at a friend’s nearby apartment.

Shaver Lake is so beautiful and when I eventually got a job as a sports

When Cocoles was a student at Fresno State, nearby Shaver Lake was a popular fishing destination not far from campus. This year the lake and nearby towns have been under siege from the Creek Fire. (ALEX OLOW/U.S. FOREST SERVICE)

The Bidwell Bar Bridge at Lake Oroville was a constant backdrop during the editor’s 2018 landlocked coho salmon trip with his friend, the late Manuel Saldana Jr. For the last month flames from the North Complex West Zone Fire have engulfed the area around the bridge and threatened residents in the city of Oroville. (CHRIS COCOLES)

reporter for the Madera Tribune, one of my beats was covering Tollhouse’s Sierra High School sports teams. So I got to know many great athletes, coaches and parents who call this area home. Now as I sat in relative silence by the lake – my sisters napping nearby and keeping track of the dogs – my heart was breaking for the residents there whose lives had been turned upside down.

NORTH COMPLEX FIRE: STARTED SEPT. 8 (BUTTE AND PLUMAS COUNTIES); AT LEAST 305,000 ACRES BURNED (84,000-PLUS IN WEST ZONE NEAR LAKE OROVILLE), 2,342 STRUCTURES DESTROYED AND 15 DEATHS My first fishing experience at Lake Oroville was back in June 2012. I joined my friend Chris and guide Rick Kennedy, who then owned and operated Tight Lines Guide Service.

We caught so many landlocked coho trolling that day, and when one of the rods at the back of Rick’s boat got tugged and the others aboard were a bit distracted, I alerted our skipper to the hit and he said, “Well, reel it in, son. You know what to do!”

Fast forward six years or so and I was catching similarly sized fish with guide Manuel Saldana Jr. of MSJ Guide Service (California Sportsman, June 2018). It was just the two of us that day and we had so many great conversations between the fish we landed.

Manny, who’d become a good friend, passed away in 2019. I think about him most often when I’m fishing, reflecting about my outings with him. So it was easy to have him on my mind at White Pines. Later that weekend I saw photos of flames engulfing the land around Lake Oroville’s Bidwell Bar Bridge, which we had sailed under and fished around that warm spring morning. A place that was so peaceful one day looked like the gates of hell another. It can’t be real. But it is.

I HAD A REALLY nice morning at White Pines Lake. It didn’t matter that nobody who showed up that day was catching any trout; a father and his kids did reel up a bluegill, so that brought a smile to my face. But it was time to go. Hunger, the increasing heat and the plan to take a dip in a nearby swimming pond near our cabin chased us away from the lake.

That Saturday just happened to be my birthday, so on the recommendation of our cabin rental hosts we stopped at the Red Apple

Though the trout weren’t biting, the quiet time at the scenic lake offered plenty of time for reflection as the state continues to be ravaged by fires in multiple locations. (CHRIS COCOLES)

bakery between Arnold and Murphys and picked up a mixed berry pie to celebrate that night.

The rest of the weekend we mostly hung around the cabin, drinking beer and wine, grilling, eating pie and dodging the pine cone dive bombers falling from those big trees towering above us.

The air was smoky, conditions that seemingly everyone in California and the West Coast endured throughout September. You can guess that my family and I talked frequently that with all these trees, we were fortunate that this community wasn’t enduring the wrath of any of the many wildfires burning throughout our home state.

I can’t help but remember the good times at Shaver and Oroville I had and weep for the bad times that the locals are still suffering through. CS