If you want to target brown trout when you're on Lake Shasta, head for the McCloud arm. Photo courtesy of John Higley.

Of course, there are the snow sports. But if you aren't into downhill or cross-country skiing or Heaven forbid, snow boarding, what's an outdoor enthusiast with a bad case of cabin fever supposed to do?

Well, if you're an angler, how about braving the elements during a lull in the usual string of winter storms to go fishing?

If you're into trout, for example, you can try the upper Sacramento River above Shasta Lake, which was opened to year-round angling for the first time two years ago. Or you can head for the main stem Sacramento below Shasta and fish for trout on the Redding to Anderson stretch, which can be very good in the winter -- providing the flows are favorable.

But therein lies the rub. Above-normal rainfall last winter, and swollen tributaries, kept the Upper Sac high and roily all winter long. And the main stem wasn't much better. Bigger-than-average releases from Shasta kept the river unfishable for weeks on end.

What does all this mean for trout anglers? Even on streams that are open in the winter, it's hit-and-miss.

However, there's one serving on the plate that is well worth a taste nearly every day of the year. I'm talking, of course, about Lake Shasta. For my money, it is the best fishing lake in the entire Northern California region.

Here's a little background on Shasta. It's the biggest manmade body of water in the state, and the keystone impoundment of the massive Central Valley Water Project. After being constructed from 1935-45, the lake was filled in 1948.

Shasta has four major arms, named for the major streams it corrals: the Sacramento River, McCloud River, Pit River and Squaw Creek. When full, the impoundment has 370 miles of shoreline and covers more than 30,000 acres. The dam is 602 feet high. The lake is as deep as 500 feet.

As you might expect, all that water has a few fish in it. Trout and bass are abundant, and there are also landlocked king salmon, catfish and panfish.

When it comes to trout, fisheries biologist Larry Hanson, of the California Department of Fish and Game, is an expert.

Hanson said each year the department plants more than 30,000 pounds of catchable rainbows from Eagle Lake and Pit River stock. That's in addition to thousands of trout raised to magnum size in underwater cages at several resorts.

Hanson said that wild rainbows are also produced naturally in incoming rivers and watersheds with perennial streams. And there's a viable population of self-sustaining brown trout -- a favorite with anglers -- which spawn mainly in the McCloud River.