Back in the Pleistocene Epoch, which ended twelve thousand years ago, Lake Lahontan covered more than eighty-six hundred square miles of western Nevada. After the last Ice Age, the climate warmed and the water receded, leaving behind a mere puddle by comparison: Pyramid Lake, 29 miles long, up to 8 miles wide, 350 feet deep, with 75 miles of shoreline and 188 square miles of surface area. Nestled in the rolling sagebrush hills less than an hour’s drive northeast of downtown Reno, Pyramid Lake’s enticing turquoise waters contrast with a stark, barren landscape.
The lake was “discovered” and named by John C. Fremont during his explorations in 1844, although the Kuyuidokado band of Northern Paiute People had been living there for centuries. The Paiutes named the lake Cui-ui Pah, after their favorite fish, the cui-ui sucker. The Paiutes called the spectacular pyramid-shaped rock island that dominates the eastern shoreline Wono, which means “overturned basket,” but Fremont named the lake after the pyramid itself, which co-incidentally is the same height as the 350-foot-high pyramid-shaped Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas.
With no outlets and a salinity roughly 15 percent of that of seawater, Pyramid Lake depends upon the Truckee River for its lifeblood. Flowing a hundred river miles from alpine Lake Tahoe, the Truckee pours nutrients and oxygenated water into the high-desert lake, fostering a fertile biomass teaming with tui chubs, Tahoe suckers, and the cui-ui suckers. Lahontan cutthroat trout adapted well to the lake’s ecosystem, evolving into piscivorous (fish-eating) predators, feasting on the vast baitfish schools and growing to a legendary 60 pounds.
In the middle and upper Truckee, pure, cold water flowed over pristine gravel beds, creating ideal spawning habitat for the Lahontan cutthroats. Witnesses recounted that the annual spring spawning runs of the late eighteenth century were a remarkable sight, the river chock full of 20-pound spawners. But they were easily preyed upon on their shallow redds. The Paiutes had given Fremont cutthroat trout so large he dubbed them “salmon fish,” with a flavor “superior . . . to that of any fish I have ever eaten,” and by the time of the spawning run of 1912, human predators using nets, gaffs, and spears, were harvesting and shipping out more than twenty thousand pounds of fish every week to satiate the country’s voracious appetite for the delicious trout.
In 1867, one of the country’s first private fish hatcheries was built on the Truckee. Thousands of Lahontan cutthroat eggs were harvested and hatched, the fingerlings planted throughout the region, and despite overzealous harvesting, in the lake the Lahontan cutthroat trout were thriving. On a cold December morning in 1925, a Paiute man by the name of John Skimmerhorn caught the official International Game Fish Association world record, a 41-pound porcine female that measured 41 inches in length.
As the lake’s reputation for trophy trout grew, luminaries and celebrities began to visit. My favorite photo from the archives is of Clark Gable, from 1934, his jet-black hair slicked back, flashing his pearly whites in a Hollywood smile, holding in each hand a cutthroat as long as his leg.
The fishing during these halcyon days was nothing short of phenomenal, but anglers noticed something odd. No little fish were being caught — only lunkers. That’s because the fate of the Lahontan cutthroat trout had already been sealed, literally and figuratively, in 1905, with the construction of the Derby Dam, 35 miles upstream from the Truckee River’s inlet to Pyramid Lake, blocking the great fish from their prime spawning grounds.
In what was America’s first major federal irrigation project, over half of the Truckee River’s flows were diverted to Lahontan Reservoir, lowering Pyramid Lake by 80 feet. The inlet became shallow from silt, preventing the cutthroat trout from even entering the river during low-water years. Ralph Cutter, in his Sierra Trout Guide, writes: “With one short-sighted and ill-conceived project, the Bureau of Reclamation destroyed the greatest freshwater trout fishery in the world.” The diverted Truckee River water was being used to grow feed for cattle. “We’ve traded lunkers for Whoppers,” Cutter says. By 1944, Lahontan cutthroat trout were extinct in Pyramid Lake.
In the 1970s, cutthroat trout from nearby Summit Lake were deemed to be the original Lahontan cutthroat trout and were stocked in Pyramid Lake by the Pauite tribe to reestablish the fishery. By 2000, a million Summit Lake strain fish were being raised annually at the tribe’s hatchery. The Summit strain (also known as the Pyramid strain) proved to be wonderful game fish, quick to take a fly and displaying gorgeous red coloration during their spring spawning phase. But the Summits didn’t spawn naturally and didn’t achieve the massive sizes of the original fish. The largest Summits grew to a maximum of 10 to 15 pounds — distant cousins, perhaps, but not the genetically pure Lahontan cutthroat trout that grew to legendary proportions.
In 1970, the Lahontan cutthroat trout was listed as an endangered species, then reclassified in 1975 as a threatened species to allow for hatchery management and regulated angling.
The Miracle
In 1979, a graduate student studying cutthroat trout discovered a small population of diminutive fish with markings identical to Lahontan cutthroat trout in a small stream near Pilot Peak on the Utah-Nevada border. The graduate student’s advisor just happened to be Dr. Robert Behnke, the world’s foremost expert on salmonids. DNA analysis using old fish mounts from Pyramid Lake Lahontan cutthroat trout confirmed that these tiny fish were in fact descendants of the original Lahontan cutthroats, planted in the early 1900s, protected from hybridization by the stream’s isolation, now serendipitously rediscovered to seed the genesis of what would become known as the Pilot Peak strain, easily identified today by a clipped adipose fin.
At first, the Paiute tribe was reluctant to embrace the Pilot Peak strain — after all, why mess with a good thing? They had enormous success with the Summit strain, and their hatchery at Sutcliffe successfully produced a million fish a year, creating a vibrant and popular recreational fishery. To ensure the Pilot Peak strain wouldn’t hybridize with the Summit strain fish, they would need to be reared in a separate hatchery and meticulously managed to guarantee genetic diversity.
In 2006, an agreement was reached: the Lahontan National Fish Hatchery Complex (LNF-HC), under the auspices of the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), would manage the Pilot Peak strain, and the Paiute tribe would continue raising the Summit strain. Stocking of the Pilot Peak fish began in 2007, with three hundred thousand small fish planted, all with clipped adipose fins for identification, some with identification tags. The fly-fishing world began to notice when a 24-pound Pilot cutthroat was caught and released in 2012. A tag on the fish revealed an incredible growth rate averaging half an inch per month. The piscivorous genetics of the original Lahontan cutthroat trout were affirmed by examination of an adult Pilot Peak’s stomach contents, which consisted of half a dozen Pilot Peak fingerlings.
In recent years, the stocking regimen — fewer Summit strain fish and more Pilot Peak fish — has changed the nature of the fishing at Pyramid Lake. Fewer fish are being caught, but more trophy-size fish are in the mix. To differentiate between the two strains, look at the adipose fin — intact on a Summit fish, clipped off on a Pilot Peak. In 2021, over two hundred thousand Pilot Peak fish were stocked, and the future looks bright, with hopes of even larger Pilot Peak fish in the not too distant future.
The Fishing Today
Pyramid Lake is on Paiute tribal land. A Nevada fishing license is not required, but you’ll need to purchase a tribal fishing license ($24 for a one-day license, $62 for a three-day license), available online at https://plpt.nagfa.net/online. (See the “If You Go…” sidebar for other fees.) The season starts on October 1 and runs through June 30. Only barbless hooks are allowed.
The north, east, and south sides of Pyramid Lake are closed to shore fishing, but the west side of the lake has 23 miles of shoreline open to the public. The tribe has developed 21 named spots there, conveniently accessible via marked dirt and gravel roads that branch off from Highway 445, which runs along the lake’s western shoreline through the tiny town of Sutcliffe. Don’t park too close to the water’s edge, and beware of soft sand. More than one vehicle has sunk to the axles. If you don’t see tire tracks, proceed with caution. Pyramid Lake is most famous for its beaches, where anglers line up on ladders and fishing chairs and cast into deeper water. You wade out into chest-deep water, plant your ladder, then climb up to get out of the chilly water and also gain distance with your cast. The old-school, tried and true technique uses a fast 7-weight or 8-weight rod, a shooting-head line with at least a 6 inch-per-second sink rate, a 9-foot leader with at least a 12-pound tippet, and an unweighted size 6 or 4 black Woolly Bugger. If you use a weighted fly, you’ll be dragging it in the sand. The elevated position on the ladder helps casting. A stripping basket is essential. If you don’t know how to double haul, you’ll want to learn and practice before you show up.
For the shallowest beaches (less than eight feet deep), a floating running line paired with a fast-sinking shooting head works best. In slightly deeper water, an intermediate running line combined with a fast-sinking shooting head works even better. I prefer an integrated intermediate running line with a built-in shooting head (example: Scientific Anglers Titan line).
After casting, I count down my fly (20 seconds in 10 feet of water for 6-inch-persecond sink rate), then typically begin a series of 5-inch pulls, interspersed with quick, sharp, erratic strips. Whatever stripping cadence you employ, you’ll learn what’s best for a given situation based on results. In colder water, the fish are more lethargic, and a slower strip elicits more takes, while in warmer months, when the fish are more active, a fast strip is more productive. The Pyramid fish tend to follow a fly for a long way before they commit, often attacking the fly when the leader is only 10 feet from the rod tip.
In addition to Woolly Buggers, a black-andchartreuse or black-and-red Woolly Worm is another Pyramid standard. The classic Pyramid combination is a foam beetle or foam tadpole tied on a very short (3 to 4 foot) leader which is trailed by an unweighted Woolly Bugger or Woolly Worm on an equal length of tippet. The weight of the Woolly Bugger (or Woolly Worm) keeps the foam pattern down toward the bottom throughout the retrieve. Doug Ouellette’s Popcorn Beetle and
Andy Burk’s Loco Tadpole in size 6 are proven attractor patterns that have produced time and time again. Their foam bodies’ buoyancy creates enticing action as the fly rises during any pause in the strip. Large baitfish patterns (I like Enrico Puglisi’s Shad in gray, size 1/0) stripped as fast as you can, are highly effective, too. After casting, tuck the rod under your armpit and use a double-handed strip retrieve.
For many years, the drop-off at nearly every beach was easily identifiable, normally just beyond the ladder set-up zone. After stepping up on your ladder, you could see the drop-off as a color change, a markedly deeper hue of blue, usually just an easy roll cast away. But the winter of 2016–2017 changed everything. A record snowfall hit the Sierra Nevada, with a total of almost sixty feet for the season, and in the month of February alone, forty feet of snow fell on the Sierra crest. That spring, Pyramid Lake rose almost ten feet, changing every spot. At popular beaches, the place where you used to plant your ladder was now in 15 feet of water. The old, well-defined drop-offs were now inaccessible from shore. Even the guides scrambled to figure out new spots. But after a few years of storm cycles, the drop-offs and shelves have begun to form again, although not nearly as well defined as they were in years past. Now, instead of the obvious drop-offs at popular beaches, almost every spot on the lake has an equal chance of producing.
Indicator fishing has become as popular as stripping as a technique for fishing the beaches. A 6-weight to 8-weight rod with a floating line is the standard setup. When using a standard floating line, I like to overline my rod by two line weights, which makes it much easier to roll cast, especially in the wind.
Switch rods are extremely useful at Pyramid, allowing you to roll cast your indicator rig greater distances. I prefer a 11-foot 6-inch 7-weight rod strung up with a 7/8-weight floating integrated shooting-head line (example: RIO Switch Chucker Line). For a strike indicator, a solid foam or balsa wood indicator, not a hollow plastic one, which is more easily affected by the wind, will allow you to cast farther (example: Jason Cockrum’s Jaydacator). You can also improve casting distance by reducing the indicator’s size and thus its air resistance.
I rig my indicator leader with a 2-foot butt section of 20-pound nylon, then 3 feet of 12-pound fluorocarbon (where the indicator is positioned), then add a tippet ring. Then I use 8-pound fluorocarbon for the remaining length. At most beaches you’ll be hanging your fly 6 to 9 feet deep. I prefer using one fly, although most anglers use two, tied about three to four feet apart. You’ll want the lower fly hanging about a foot above the bottom. A simple way to check your depth is to clamp a hemostat onto the bottom fly. Adjust your indicator until it’s a foot or two underwater, and you’re all set.
Beadhead midges in size 8 or 10 are the standard midge patterns for indicator nymphers. The Albino Wino (a wine-colored thread body with white bead head) is a Pyramid favorite, especially in the springtime. As an attractor pattern, Rob Anderson’s Maholo Nymph in size 12 has long been one of the most effective flies to hang under a bobber at Pyramid. It doesn’t resemble anything in particular that inhabits the lake, but maybe it looks like an ice cream sundae for trout.
Apart from the beaches, some spots offer rocky outcrops where you’ll be casting straight into deeper water off rock ledges. This is where a switch rod really comes into its own, allowing big roll casts where back-casting space is limited. The rocks are frequented by foraging fish probing the nooks and crannies for aquatic insects and baitfish seeking refuge and are great spots to fish a Balanced Leech or Balanced Baitfish under an indicator, especially in windy conditions and off-color water.
The Seasons
When the season opens in October, before winter cold fronts begin marching through, bluebird skies and calm conditions prevail. Water temperatures hover in the mid to upper 60s, and the cutthroats are in deeper, cooler water, usually 20 to 60 feet. Great schools of tui chub baitfish cruise around, occasionally making their presence known by busting the surface. Areas such as Blockhouse, Rawhide, Sand Hole, Wino Beach, Spider Point, Warrior Point, and the Monument are good choices this time of year, since they all have drop-offs that allow you to cast directly into deeper water from a shoreline stance. Find the bait balls, and you’ll find the big cutts. They make brief forays to the surface and into the shallows to attack, but generally stay deep. This is the time of year when a boat, float tube, or personal watercraft gives you an advantage. In calm conditions, if you can spot and stay on the bait balls, you’ll stay in the game. Fish-finding sonar can be a real asset. Out in the deeper water, a full sinking line with at least a 6-inch-per-second sink rate is key, as is a heavily weighted streamer such as a conehead baitfish pattern, with no lighter than 12-pound tippet, because strikes are jolting.
If you take a boat, beware. Pyramid’s fickle winds can spring up suddenly, turning a glassy lake into a merciless, white-capped nightmare in minutes. More than a few boats have capsized on the lake. A close friend of mine lost his brother to the lake when his brother went boating on a calm day with his friend and his dog. That afternoon, the wind came up. They were never found, nor was their boat. My friend has been back to Pyramid only once, and then he vowed never to return, because the sight of the lake made him despondent.
The water temperature drops into the 50s in November, and the fish frequent the shallows more often. Indicator fishing picks up in late November and into December, because the fish cruise the shoreline drop-offs. Something with a little flash, such as Andy Burk’s Red Glitter Midge or a Holographic Midge, helps grab their attention this time of year.
From late December to February, the water cools dramatically into the 40s and down to the low 40s at the coldest. The fish become lethargic and tend to stay deeper, in slightly warmer water, but occasionally visit the deeper shoreline drop-offs and shallower water. Every bite counts at that time of year, because they’re few and far between, but often, it’s a grab from a larger fish.
The lake comes alive in the springtime. From mid-February into March, the tribe’s artificial spawning channel at the town of Sutcliffe, between the North and South Nets, draws the Summit Lake fish in like a magnet. Suddenly, they’re everywhere, cruising the midlake shoreline, often even inside the ladder lineups at the beaches. Pilot Peak fish are lured in, too, but 90 percent of these fish are Summits.
March and April are prime time at Pyramid. Water temperatures hit the optimal 50-to-58-degree range, and the fish are active, aggressively feeding. Both stripping and indicator methods work equally well this time of year. With the sun higher in the sky, fishing can be notoriously slow during glassy conditions, but as soon as the wind kicks up, it’s as if a switch has been flipped, and the bite turns on. The best action is often during the gnarliest conditions, with the wind blowing onshore in your face, but it’s tough to stand on a ladder in three-foot waves.
During May, the fish spread out. At most areas, the action slows, but the northernmost spots, such as the Monument, often still fish well. In June, the water warms, the fish recede to the depths, and watercraft come into play once again, but beware of the erratic wind.
Wall of Shame
Two decades ago, the Crosby Lodge Bar and Grill in Sutcliffe (now the Pyramid Lake Lodge) had a “Wall of Fame.” To get your grip-and-grin photo posted on the wall, you had to bring your fish in to have it officially weighed and photographed. At first, fame was achieved by joining the “10-Pound Club,” but as the Pilot Peak strain began to predominate, soon the “15-Pound Club,” and then the “20-Pound Club” were the benchmark, but a lot of fish died in the process. Catch-and-release anglers would bring in their fish in a water-filled cooler, then transport it back to the lake for release. Most fish still didn’t survive the ordeal.
When social-media groups such as Facebook’s Pyramid Lake Fly Fishing (now sixty-five hundred members strong) grew in numbers and influence, things began to change. Catch-and-release posts were lauded with approving comments, while posts showing dead fish or poor fish-handling practices were followed by disparaging ones. Social-media posts often bring out the worst in human discourse, but at Pyramid Lake, the massive influence of social-media peer pressure greatly benefited the fish.
Pyramid Lodge’s “Wall of Fame” now features digital images of trophy-sized fish flashed on TV screens, and it’s rare that a Lahontan cutthroat trout is not released by fly anglers. It’s a widely held belief that these giant trout are too valuable to be caught only once. As Lee Wulff once said: “The finest gift you can give to any fly fisherman is to put a great fish back, and who knows if the fish you caught isn’t someone else’s gift to you?”
The Future
In April 2014, two Paiute brothers hiking along the Truckee River spotted spawning Lahontan cutthroat trout a few miles up from the lake’s inlet, below Marble Bluff Dam. It was estimated that a hundred Pilot Peak fish, averaging 20 pounds, migrated into the Truckee to spawn for the first time in 76 years. “It’s a milestone for Lahontan cutthroat conservation,” said LNFHC fisheries manager Lisa Heki.
In 2016, Lahontan cutthroat trout were allowed to pass above Marble Bluff Dam, thanks to an elaborately engineered fish ladder, and they spawned in the river all the way up to Numana Dam, 12 miles upstream from Pyramid Lake. The next year, Lahontan cutthroat trout were allowed to pass above Numana Dam, this time spawning in the river all the way up to Derby Dam, 30 miles upstream from the lake.
In the spring of 2020, 1,560 Lahontan cutthroat trout were allowed to spawn in the river between Numana and Derby Dams, and in 2021, a remarkable fish, weighing 27.2 pounds and measuring 36.5 inches in length, was documented at Marble Bluff Dam. But the spawning habitat in the lower Truckee, below Derby Dam, is not ideal, with siltier gravel and warmer water than the middle and upper Truckee, where the original Lahontan cutthroat trout are genetically programmed to spawn.
In the fall of 2020, a fish-passage screen was completed at Derby Dam, allowing Lahontan cutthroat finally to access their long-lost natal spawning grounds. With a price tag of $31 million, it was the most expensive fish-passage screen ever built.
But the LNFHC and the Nevada Department of Wildlife have been understandably reticent to allow unrestricted mass migration of Lahontan cutthroat trout above Derby Dam. It’s a complicated issue. Hybridization of lake-dwelling Lahontan cutthroats with Truckee River rainbows and cutthroats could compromise the genetic purity of the original strain, so painstakingly cultivated back from the brink of extinction. Careful research will guide future management strategies, but the goal remains clear: “If we could get this fish, the state fish of Nevada, to run the entire length of the Truckee River, all the way to Lake Tahoe, that would be an amazing accomplishment,” said LNFHC biologist Roger Peka.
Dams, deforestation, climate change, and global warming have resulted in tragic losses, calamities that devastated fisheries and extirpated entire races of fish. Fishing Northern California’s coastal rivers for salmon and steelhead, I’ve experienced that profound sense of loss, as if I’m fishing for ghosts, dreaming of legendary spawning runs that vanished fifty years ago. But the Pyramid Lake Lahontan cutthroat trout, resurrected by luck or by fate, is recovering and beginning to thrive.
What other stillwater fishery in America offers an incredibly good chance, in a few days of concerted fishing, of landing a cutthroat trout that weighs more than 10 pounds?
Today, when we catch Pyramid Lake Lahontan cutthroat trout, we connect with the past — to an ancient fish reborn for the future. Preserving the miraculous gift of the giant Lahontan cutthroat trout for those not yet born is our era’s mandate.
Tagged Fish
About 10 percent of stocked Pilot Peak Lahontan cutthroat trout receive Floy tags, a small green or orange tag attached near the dorsal fin. (The tag is named for the company that manufactures them.) If you catch a fish with a Floy tag, record the tag number, length, and girth of the fish, the weight (weigh it in a big rubber net, then subtract the weight of the net), and where you caught and released it, then call the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Office at (775) 861-6355 with the information. If you leave your contact info (email or phone number), they will get back to you with the date the fish was stocked, what size it was at stocking, and its growth rate. The Floy tags are marked “USFWS” followed by a 6-digit tag number, plus they’re marked with the contact phone number. Recording this valuable information helps the federal Lahontan fish hatchery study the growth rate and longevity of these remarkable fish.
— Bob Gaines
If You Go…
In addition to fishing license fees ($24 for a one-day license, $62 for a three-day license), if you bring a boat, boating permit fees are $26 for one day and $66 for three days. Boating permits are not required for personal watercraft such as rafts, float tubes, kayaks, and canoes, unless they have a motor attached or are occupied by more than one person. Overnight camping is allowed at the lake at all the western shoreline fishing areas by purchasing a tribal overnight camping permit, $32 per vehicle for one day, $82 for three days. All licenses and permits are available online at pyramidlake.us/permits.
For information on fishing regulations (hours, closed areas [the majority of the shoreline], bag and slot limits, etcetera), visit pyramidlake.us/fishing.
The only lodging on the reservation is Pyramid Lake Lodge, located in Sutcliffe. The lodge offers trailer, mobile home, and cabin rentals, along with a bar and grill and a small convenience store. Its website is www.pyramidlakelodge.com; phone; (775) 476-4000; email: Hello@PyramidLakeLodge.com.
The closest fly shops to Pyramid Lake are in Reno. The Reno Fly Shop (238 S. Arlington Avenue; [775] 323-3474) sells Pyramid gear, and its website, renoflyshop.com, has an interactive map that features all of Pyramid’s named shore spots and provides details such as access road information and techniques that work best for particular times of the year. The Orvis store in Reno (13945 S. Virginia St., [775] 850-2272; stores.orvis.com) likewise has tackle for Pyramid and staff experience with the lake.
Given Truckee’s proximity to Pyramid, two retailers there, Trout Creek Outfitters (10115 Donner Pass Road; [530] 563-5119; TroutCreekOutfitters.com) and Mountain Hardware and Sports (11320 Donner Pass Road; [530] 587-4844; MountainHardwareandSports.com), have staff who know Pyramid’s fishery, and they also carry Pyramid-appropriate tackle. Both have easy access off Interstate 80. All four stores sell their recommended Pyramid Lake flies online, and their websites all have fishing reports for Pyramid. Trout Creek Outfitters’s website also has a four-part series of articles on Pyramid Lake.
— Bob Gaines