Lahontan Cutthroat - Great Story

[englishprof]

May have to make a side trip when we go to Montana in July.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/us/lahontan-cutthroat-trout-make-a-comeback.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

 

[docsab]

Love the ladders. Wonder how you attach them to your fly vest.

 

[SBecker]

I watched TU On The Rise 2 or 3 years ago that highlighted Pyramid Lake. Ever since I have had a bad itch to get out there at some point.

 

[JeffK]

My son lives in Reno and I fish Pyramid Lake and it is a very cool place. Desert scenery, alkaline water with a pH of 9.4 (I'm not sure you could pour it down a drain in NJ) and monster fish. They call the juvenile ones around 20" "shakers" and when us tourists look amazed at a 2 foot cutthroat the locals just say put that shaker back.

But there is no fishing in July; the season is October through May.

 

[timmyt]

Why are they standing on the ladders? To cast further out?

 

[JeffK]

A number of reasons for the ladders. You can stand higher and spot fish better and get the cast out farther. When the fish move inshore they cruise right near shore or just off a shallow drop-off. It is more fun, and effective IMHO to spot the fish rather than just blind fishing all the time. The picture was on a nice spring day, but most of the season is in winter where it can be cold with strong Washoe winds. The more you are out of the water in the winter the better.

I have never used a ladder, but some have gotten elaborate. I was told it started with people standing on milk crates and then progressed. Now a lot of guys have nice fiberglass or plastic molded seats on the ladder. They stand to cast and then sit down while the line sinks and strip the flies back sitting down. Fishing with a nymph under an indicator has become very popular and you can do that sitting all the time. You set up on a point with a wind driven current, roll cast the nymph and indicator upwind, let it drift until your line straightens and repeate endlessly. That drives some of the purists crazy who think just sitting on your butt is lazy.

 

[gulfgreyhound]

I've seen guys on ladders in gulf passes when the snook were running them. Better sighting and easier to cast in front of crusing fish. GG

 

[barbless]

Next we'll be seeing it along the streams, like out in some of the meadows of the LeTort.

They'll need to be camouflaged, of course. Trout blinds.

 

[BeastBrown]

Pretty close quarters in this image at the link. It's 125k acres so I'm guessin you can move around some. Jetskis and boats it says. Probably gonna regret that jet ski decision, wonder if they have a jetski specific zone. Imagine waiting to cast to one of those cruising giants and a jetski plows through. Fishing permits look very reasonable-camping too. Owned by the natives. Fly into Reno or Con Air it and go to Carson City, lol.

http://pyramidlakefisheries.org/fishmap/fishtips.html

 

[geebee]

why don't they just use float tubes ? - great story, thanks for sharing it with us. would be nice to see the fish !

A Cape Cod guide Randy Jones uses a step ladder to sight stripers for his clients on the Monomoy flats.

 

[Chaz]

Pretty amazing that they found these fish at all. I believe there were still some within the Pyramid Lake Drainage too.

 

[JeffK]

Anyone who has seen a Washoe Wind pick up knows why people there don't use float tubes. Mark Twain in his stories about Virginia City claimed most baldness in the area was caused by the winds blowing the hair off of people. Pyramid is a huge lake - it's 188 square miles and is up to 11 miles across and 27 miles long. The East and North sides have no paved roads so you don't want to blow over. It's a long walk back. Kind of why you don't see float tubes on the Great Lakes much. That said, I've seen a couple of float tubes and pontoons - but only in protected coves on calm warm days.

 

[JeffK]

It is amazing that they found the fish. 10,000 years ago in wetter times Lake Lahontan was 1000 ft deep and covered much of Northern Nevada. The Lahontan cutthroat was the native trout of this massive lake system. When the west dried out it left a handful of Lahontan strains in isolated drainages. Pyramid Lake had two populations, a small and a large one. When the dam on the lower Truckee was built that stopped the spawning runs the average size of the fish in the last attempted run was 24 lbs. That's getting up to King Salmon size.

When they reintroduced Lahontan cutts to Pyramid Lake they got them from Walker Lake further south, but they weren't the same strain that got huge. They have been looking for a way to breed back the original Pyramid lake strain when they discovered an isolated population. The trout populations in both the Lahontan and Bonneville basins of the desert great basin have been isolated for 10,000 years and there is a lot of debate about what strains are native or mixed by bucket brigade or state rainbow stocking and what is a subspecies and what is a strain. Until recently there hasn't been a lot of respect for the local native trout, but that appears to have changed. Desert trout fishing is fascinating.