Fourth of July Weekend Fishing @ Pinecrest, CA

It’s so nice having a long weekend for Fourth of July! It was a great opportunity to spend some time outdoors with fresh air and nature and unplugging from the hustle and bustle of work. Our friend, Brandon, invited us to a quick weekend camping trip at Pinecrest, CA because he heard there has been some really good fishing there, and boy was he right! Not only did we get some great fishing done, we also ate good food (probably slightly fancier than your average camping food) and had some much needed quality time with great company.

We set up camp Friday night at the Deadman Campground in Pinecrest. It was a good time to test our our new “couple” camping gear for our upcoming week-long camping trip at Lake Almanor this upcoming weekend. We got a new tent, 2-person sleeping bag, and an air mattress. One thing to note about me and my husband is that he is 6′6″ tall and I am 5′ short. He also runs really warm, while I run really cold, so finding a sleeping bad that works for both of us was really important. Verdict: we love all the new gear we bought so far. The tent was so quick to set up and has enough space for us and our stuff, and our big dogs for when we bring them camping next week.

The camping

Waking up to beautiful Pinecrest was great. There are so many striking boulders all over the side of the mountains! Brandon offered to make us breakfast as he was excited to feed us his fancy camp breakfast, so Andrew prepared our coffee instead. For breakfast, we had English muffins (toasted on the pan with some butter), with smoked salmon, avocado, and poached eggs. Yep, poached eggs. And I thought I was fancy, haha. Nothing fancy for coffee though. My usual go-to for camp coffee is my Kopiko Instant 3-in-1 Brown Coffee. Andrew (the hubby) and Brandon added Starbucks Via Instant Coffee to theirs as well. It was a very satisfying breakfast to get us started in our day!

Even though there are fishing spots actually in the campground, we opted to head to Kennedy Meadows down the street and hike up the horse trail. We only hiked about half a mile until we found a good spot for fishing.

The fishing

There was so much action that day! All three of us limited out on trout. In the beginning, the boys were getting more action than I was, but towards the latter half of our fishing day, I was getting a lot more bites and kinda kicking their butts a little, haha. All three of us used different baits and were picked our own spots to fish in. I had a lot of luck using the cheese PowerBait, and Andrew mostly used night crawlers (live worms) and sherbet glitter PowerBait. Brandon stuck mostly with lures.

The boys decided that they were going to smoke a few of the trout using a makeshift smoker and apple wood chips in our campsite. They came out pretty well! We seasoned them with just salt and pepper and smoked them for about 20 minutes.

The rest of the meals

Besides our fancy breakfast and smoked trout, Brandon also brought some venison sausage that his uncle made, so he wanted us to try that too. I believe the sausage was a mix of venison and pork, and was made to be like a breakfast sausage, flavor-wise. I suggested to crumble it and mix it with the Steamfresh California Style Power Blend veggie mix. The lentils, peas, broccoli, and edamame with the light garlic sauce paired really well with the venison sausage!

On our last morning, we had our usual camp coffee, but I also got to try the Mountain House Biscuits and Gravy freeze-dried meal. It was my first time trying freeze-dried meals, but Andrew vetted this particular brand and dish so I thought I’d give it a try. It was really good! The biscuits surprisingly remained its texture even after soaking in the hot water. And since each bag has two servings, it was very filling.

Overall, it was a very successful and relaxing weekend! We got to spend quality time with Brandon, ate some really good meals, and had an amazing time catching fish! It was also a good teaser for what our week-long Almanor camping trip will be like. Lake Almanor has bigger trout too, so hopefully we can continue our good catching streak!