It’s a hot summer day and ski boats are churning the water at Prineville Reservoir to froth.

Which is fine if you have a ski boat.

But if you’re like me, and you don’t, you can either join the party on the beach or go somewhere else until the crowds thin out. November is nice. But this is high season, and there’s not much to be done if you like to spread out a little bit and perhaps wet a line on a lazy August day.

Hold it. Not so fast.

Got high clearance? North Shore Road is a lightly traveled unimproved path that, not surprisingly, begins on the lake’s northeast side and hooks around to that nebulous place where the Crooked River turns into the reservoir. While it’s difficult to tell exactly where the river leaves off and the lake begins, Prineville Reservoir is actually one big stretch of Crooked River frog water. Which is to say it’s slow moving.

Built between 1958 and 1961 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bowman Dam is Prineville Reservoir’s raison d’etre. It merely slows the water down for a while (and stores it for farmers downstream), before it flows its way into Lake Billy Chinook and into the Deschutes River.

Back to high clearance. If you have a suitable vehicle, North Shore Road offers up the wild side of Prineville Reservoir. Beginning at Jasper Point, North Shore Road skirts several walk-in coves and a couple of drive-in camp sites. There’s also a cool little parking area directly across from Skeleton Rock. Pull in and contemplate the imposing outcrop on the other side of the reservoir, the site of some fairly heavy duty goings on more than 130 years ago.

In 1870, John Holt and his friend, Jack, held up a mail stage carrying the Army payroll, and occasionally gold, to forts in Southern Oregon and Northern California. According to local treasure aficionado Dan Petchell, Jack shot and killed the stagecoach guard and the pair got away with the mail sack and the strong box, riding hellbent for leather to the west and the Crooked River breaks.

They were headed for the high Cascades and, eventually, the Willamette Valley, when they were waylaid by marauding Indians.

The pair ended up fending off the attack from a lofty parapet atop the rock across the reservoir. Jack died, John was injured, and the gold — 50,000 19th-century dollars’ worth — was jettisoned somewhere up there.

I’ve been over there a couple of times and never found the booty. But it makes for some seriously interesting daydreaming.

On this, the lonely side of the reservoir, there are Canada geese and great blue heron and waterfowl just about everywhere you look. I saw an osprey cannon ball into the water and come away with a fat trout in its talons. I also watched a solitary canoe paddler gliding silently upstream. On the other side of the road, I scared up a covey of quail that went scooting up a bone-dry draw until the jaunty little running birds disappeared into the brush.

By that time, I’d left the drone of ski boats far behind.

Of course, if it’s the social scene you’re looking for, Prineville Reservoir State Park has all the amenities. Between the main state park area and Jasper Point, there are more than 50 camping hookups, 23 tent sites and five cabins. Around on the northeast side, Prineville Reservoir Resort offers campsites and a store (447-7468). The store sells a funky one-page map of the reservoir for 50 cents that’s really all you need to navigate up there.

The fishing seems to be good anywhere you go on the reservoir. I’ve caught trout, catfish, bass and crappie there, all on the same summer day. Trusty old nightcrawlers work well for most of the species in Prineville Reservoir. Fly fishers do best in the tailwater section of the Crooked River below Bowman Dam.

If you go

Getting there: From Prineville, head east on state Highway 126. Turn right at Combs Flat Road, then right toward Juniper Canyon Road. Turn left onto Juniper Canyon Road. From there it’s about 11 miles to the reservoir. Before you reach Prineville Reservoir State Park, turn left. Just before Jasper Point, turn left on to the unimproved North Shore Road. During the summer season, the road is open between the reservoir and Paulina Highway where the Crooked River flows in.

Contact: Prineville Reservoir State Park, 447-4363.