Pyramid Lake Nevada is home to the world famous Lahontan Cutthroat trout, including the Pilot Peak strain that have been growing in the lake for several years. The Pilot Peak trout are very aggressive and grow bigger and faster than the original Summit Lake strain. These trout make Pyramid Lake the best place in the world to catch a 10 pound – or even 20 pound --cutthroat trout!
John Brassfield of Foresthill and I went up to Pyramid early on a +
Wednesday morning in mid-June. We arrived at the ramp from my home in Colfax about 6:30 am. It was a beautiful morning with an air temperature of 50 degrees. A breeze was blowing from the north as we launched the Fish Sniffer Rogue Jet 21 Coastal, but it didn’t prevent us from running to the north to Fox Bay. We ran up on the east side of the lake and started trolling north of Hell’s Kitchen and into Fox bay in 60 feet of water. We didn’t do much until we started seeing bait and fish marks on the Lowrance screen, and then we started catching fish. My first fish weighed 13 pounds on yellow/red spot B-21 spoon behind Vance’s cannonball flashers at 2.3 mph. We caught fish here and there, whenever we saw bait on the screen. Mostly fishing in 40 to 70 feet of water, all right on the bottom. We saw suspended fish at 30 feet deep or so, but never could get one to bite. The B-21 spoon was the hot ticket in the morning, plus I got a few on a 4 inch chartreuse/orange Silver Horde spoon. John got some on his orange frog Built to Bite jointed plug plus a couple on a blue/yellow 4 inch Apex. The cannonball flashers really made a difference. We both caught more fish when we put them on. We found a group of 12 boats all jigging and/or fly-fishing about a mile offshore in the south east part of Fox Bay. They were catching a few fish, but it wasn’t red hot. There were folks on the radio doing well west of us near the Pinnacles. We picked up the gear and ran to the west and started marking fish immediately. I set a way point on the Lowrance graph so we could find the spot again. Fox Bay is a big place – over 9 miles wide and about 4 or 5 miles wide. We started fishing and caught a few 5 to 9 pounders before John hooked a beauty on a green frog Built to Bite jointed plug. He said this felt like a good fish and he was right – after about 10 minutes and a spirited fight, I grabbed the “big” net and landed a gorgeous, fat 19 pound cutthroat! After a quick release, we decided to head in to camp. We ended up with 23 fish landed for the day, with a 13 pounder and John’s 19 pounder for big fish. We only caught one small trout of 22 inches – all the others were over 24 inches. The average weight had to be 6 to 9 pounds! Went in about 4:30 and set up a camp in the rocks near the boat ramp. We had dinner at the lodge and came back to camp for a bourbon before the campfire overlooking the lake as dusk settled.
Thursday morning, we made coffee, broke camp and were launching at 5:30. We decided to start on the north west side today, and ran up to the Needles and started trolling east. Out near the middle, where I had marked a waypoint the day before, we started really seeing a lot of bait and started catching fish. I landed a fish on the chartreuse/orange silver Horde spoon, and as John netted it we could see a red colored plug in its mouth as well. Not really in the mouth, but right up alongside it. Neither John or I had a plug that color on? We released the fish and kept the plug, which had about 20 feet of line on it and had obviously broken off from someone. It was a really nice pattern, with a black background with bright orange crackly type marks going through it, and chartreuse spots on both sides. I decided to put it on and then it was lights out!! I put it only 12 feet above the spoon on the bottom near the cannonball flashers, and about 100 feet back. Those plugs dive about 10 feet, so I knew I was near the bottom. We were fishing in 40 to 60 feet of water, and I was keeping the Bottom Line Tackle ten pound tube weight right on the bottom, bringing it up a foot or two when it started bouncing. I caught about 7 fish in a row with that lure, that we determined later on was a Dirtee Dancer plug. John was doing well with a copper/black 4 inch Doctor Spoon and a Lyman Tui chub pattern plug. We were hitting fish everywhere we saw bait. Then I had a big hit on the same plug, and the line was ripped off the downrigger and the drag was screaming. At first I thought I might be hung on the bottom, but the rod was bouncing and it seemed to be slowly coming with us. After a few minutes, I was able to gain some line as the big fish turned towards us. After the first big rush, the trout just kind of sounded and stayed near the bottom as I slowly brought him closer to the boat. He felt very heavy but was coming in obediently! As he neared the boat, he tore more line off the reel as he took a couple more long runs. Then he slowly came ever closer. John finally saw the fish, and he said “Wow! I need the big net!! “ After a couple shorter runs, he netted a super fat Lahontan cutthroat of 21 pounds!!! It was 33 inches long and the girth had to be at least 25 inches! We took a quick photo and put him back in the water alongside the boat, and he swam off easily.
We continued trolling the 40 to 60 foot line towards the east, until we stopped seeing bait, and then turned around and trolled back to the west. We had another great day, landed 23 cutthroat including 13 and 21 pounders, and I swear the average size was 7 to 9 pounds. On a day like this, we didn’t bother to weigh those “little” fish. We carefully released all the trout we caught in the 2 days and may catch them again in the future!
In my considerate opinion, there is no other place in the world where fishermen can “expect” to catch a ten plus pound trout like Pyramid Lake. Earlier in June, my friend Brian Garcia and I had a “mediocre” day at Pyramid, landing only 17 trout to seven pounds – that would be a fantastic day at any other trout lake I know of!
Pyramid Lake closed to trout fishing on June 30th. It opens again on October first and I’m sure many of us will be there to enjoy this spectacular fishery! For more information, go to www.pryamidlake.us/fishing.
