Been a while since I had any post-worthy fishing reports but this one was a good one!
The day had finally come…..about two months in the planning, I was going to get to fish for some Lohontan Cutthroats at Pyramid Lake just north of Reno, NV. The weather was questionable as far as wind or snow was concerned but there was no question at all that it was going to be bitterly cold as near record lows were expected from Bishop all the way north to Reno. It was 7 degrees when me and my brother rolled through Gardnerville en route to Reno……we were both a bit concerned but what the hell, we had come that far so we’d be damned if we weren’t going to get our fish on, regardless of how cold it was going to be the next morning.
We arrived at our hotel about 9pm, met up with my buddy Mike, who’d been playing in the casino for damn near 8 hours, and then checked in. We all headed down to the sports book bar at the hotel and get to the business of drinking Fat Tire on tap. Mike crashed out early, Lane & myself got a little carried away drinkin & gamblin and didn’t get back to the room until 2am or so……ah yes, gotta love casinos….even though you know you’re getting up prior to 6am the flashing lights and flowing adult beverages always manage to keep you there way past bed time.
Saturday 1/13
The usual suspects…..
Skipper – Mike aka Occy
First Mate – Myself aka Smitty
Second Mate – Lane Smith aka The Lane
6:30am came WAY to early and me and Lane were feeling it….but it was all good, we were ready to go get our fish on. Loaded up Mike’s boat, hit 7/11 fishing permits and coffee and arrived at the lake by about 9:15am. It was incredibly cold that morning, until the sun came out I would guess mid single digits, but when that big heater in the sky came up, it was actually quite nice….well, considering that since we were prepared, it wasn’t too bad.
A beautiful morning out there despite the chill….
Getting the boat ready to rock….
Snowy icy launch ramp anyone?
After finally get the enclosure up and everything buttoned down we tried to launch the rig…..motor starts, doesn’t piss. Uh Oh. While Mike tinkers with this boat another guy tries to launch next to us…..what actually caused this is still up for some debate but we watched them launch their boat and as soon as the trailer pulled away from the boat I watched water just pour over the transom and it swamped!!! DOH! I think at that point I was thankful to only be dealing with the delay of a cold motor as opposed to a boat full of water. Luckily for them, they were somehow able to get the trailer back under the boat before the boat rested completely on the bottom. After they got their boat out of the water we turned out attention back to our own issue….so we trailered the boat again and took a little propane heater to the motor hoping to melt whatever blockage, presumably ice, had clogged the water intake.
Mike getting frisky with his Optmimax….
We were finally able to get on the water about 10:15am and got to our first spot about 10:30am.
Pic of us finally leaving the ramp area…
The plan of attack was to start a bit south of Spider point and troll back and forth across the point for a while to see what happens. We fished several lures over the course of the day but the most productive by far was a GIANT watermelon Thomas Bouyant and various colors of Lucky Craft baits.
:Lucky Craft…Mike got his biggun on this lure
This lure was money Saturday afternoon…
My biggun was on the Thomas….
We were trolling using downriggers and caught fish anywhere from 105ft to 25ft over the course of the weekend. Saturday morning started a bit on the slow side but we did have a decent pick on these incredibly beautiful fish. Our first hookup of the day saw Lane land a beautiful female Cutty, not huge but pushing two pounds, a nice fish IMO.
Hookup!!!
Woo hoo, the skunk is off!
At this point I really couldn’t comprehend just how pretty these fish do get….and pictures don’t really capture how gorgeous they are. Next hookup was for me and I was shocked how well the fish fought….I told Mike this was a good fish but I don’t think he believed me…fish comes to color and it’s a beautiful fish, bright red gill plate, rosy coloration and it ended up making quite a ruckus when it got to the surface. We put a net on it and I had my first Pyramid Lake Cutt…..damn I was stoked!!!!! We tried to put a scale on the fish but it took so much time getting the two treble hooks out of his mouth that I didn’t feel comfortable keeping it out of the water enough any longer and I wanted to insure a safe release. In any event the fish went about 5lbs, and it was a very healthy fish indeed.
The fight
The fish
The celebration
The bite would continue to be spotty until about 1pm when things really started to heat up. We fished an area called Warrior Point…the water here goes from 120+ ft up to about 13 in some places and as soon as I saw this on the depth finder I knew we’d find fish there. Using the GPS we found ourselves a good line that produced fish on both our first and second passes….water depth was 35-40ft and we were running our downriggers at 25ft with diving baits so the offerings were just off the bottom. We didn’t have to move for the rest of the afternoon and when all was said and done we had landed 21 fish and missed probably ½ a dozen more. Awesome bite for sure. Here are a few pics of the carnage Saturday afternoon. All of the afternoon fish were caught on the lucky craft lures.
One of Lane’s better fish
Another..
And another…
Mike with a beautiful fish…
View of the lake…..
This fish has a mouthful of Lucky Craft..
Me holding another beauty..
The ride back to the launch on Saturday
All in all it was an astoundingly good day of fishing…great company, great weather and awesome fishing!
We headed back to town about 5pm, hit up the local sports bar to watch the came and burn our insides with spicy hot wings…oh, and guzzle a few Fat Tire drafts. Stopped by Sportsman’s Wherehouse to re-supply with lures also….those places are the bomb, I wihs I had one closer to me. Saturday night we gambled a bit more but took it much easier than Friday night. We didn’t plan on bothering to get out early on Sunday since our bite on Saturday was primarily an afternoon bite so we decided to sleep in until 8am or so….zzzzzzzzzzz.
Sunday 1/14
The weather was about the same Sunday as it was Saturday…..calm, sunny and COLD. We repeated the same stops as the day before en route to the lake and ended up getting on the water about the same time.
While at the launch we saw the coolest boat off all time….pretty much looked like a floating margarita stand, if it was 75 degrees warmer I would have been even more stoked! hahhaa
Instead of heading north from the ramp, today we decided to hit an area called the nets about 15 minutes south of the ramp. Fishing turned out to be much slower in this area but Mike did score what we were hoping for, a nice pre-spawn fish that apparently had showed up a bit early to the spawning grounds. This fish really gave him a fight pulling line and making a rainbow out of his rod! When we finally landed the fish it weighed in just under 7lbs at 6lb 11oz. The color on this fish was phenomenal, not uncommon for this lake apparently, but next to a golden trout I’d have to say these cutts are the second most beautiful trout I’ve ever seen. Mike caught this fish on a Lucky Craft.
Mike’s fish….
We picked up another fish a short time later, this one was the smallest fish of the trip, probably 17” or so…..this one took the Bouyant. We ended up with 5 fish for the day, still not a bad day for such a late start but we were a bit spoiled on Saturday. When we finally made the run out to Warrior point, we found about 8 other boats trolling it…..apparently we were a little too forthcoming at the ramp on Saturday when folks asked us how we did. Lesson learned.
Fish on…
Average fish on Sunday looked like this….
Still, it was a beautiful day out there and it was still a lot of fun…..we pretty much talked smack on one another the whole day, if the fishing is mediocre, he who talks the most shit wins….at least that’s what I say.
So, will I be back to fish Pyramid? Hell yes! Do I recommend that you make a trip there…..no way, I want it all to myself!!!! hahahaha!!!
Peace,
Smitty
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