Northern California Fishing and Camping: Grace Lake and Lake Nora

Grace Lake and Lake Nora

If you are in the Redding area and just looking for a good place to catch planted trout either by bait or on the fly, Grace Lake and Lake Nora are just east of Shingletown, from Hwy 299 in Shingletown take Wilson Hill Road (in the middle of town, look for totem pole) traveling south till you see the sign, maybe 2 miles.

Grace Lake is stocked almost weekly and during the summer there is always a significant amount of very catchable and hungry trout. Because this lake is heavily stocked I would not worry about catch and release fishing or anything like that. There are plenty of them here and most people fishing here are trying to catch a limit for dinner.

This is also a great lake to take the kids and grandpa. They have easy access to the lake and they can easily cast to the fish, they only need to be about 10 to 15 feet out to catch trout. The dirt road to the lake is somewhat smooth and you can take a sedan to the parking area.

There is an old restroom on the east end of the lake but it usually has a healthy population of yellow jackets hovering in and around it. If you want to take a walk, the east end has a small creek flowing out of it that eventually, within a couple hundred yards, merges with the Keswick Canal.

Keswick Canal

Keswick Canal

There is plenty of access to this canal

Keswick Canal does not have many rainbows in it but it has plenty of little Brookies

The creek coming out of Lake Grace to the canal is not stocked but the canal is stocked.

Keswick Canal joins Lake Nora. This lake is okay to fish if you get there on a stocking day but not too good any other day.

Lake Nora is a very small lake, what you see in these photos is just about all of the lake

When your fishing season is not going to well, and you need to boost your moral Grace Lake is a good place to go and get some confidence back or teach your kids or a newcomer to fish. When I have visitors come in from out of town and they want some easy access fishing I take them here.

When I fly fish Grace Lake I use a beaded head Pheasant Tail nymph usually about as small as I can see to tie it but anything from #12 to #20 are fine. I use an indicator with no weight and cast it out and let it sit for awhile until they bite. As it gets later and the dry fly action looks good I use a dry fly called a “Green Comparadun” in #16 or #18. If you decide you want to bait fish here I don’t think the type of bait matters, they take just about anything.