Lake Tahoe.....Pyramid Lake, NV......
Last week the family did a little vacationing at Lake Tahoe…..it was my wife’s idea to include not only our daughters but the 14 year olds best friend…..kind of destroys the idea of tranquility and quiet even before we started. My wife was allowing me a day or so for fishing….I was a bit jacked cause this would give me the opportunity to catch a lahontan cutthroat trout….a new subspecies to add to my lifetime list.
After arriving on Saturday evening in Reno we made our way to Tahoe through driving rain. The next day it got really chilly and started to snow that night. Of course I had arranged to fish Lake Tahoe Monday morning but the guide said “no way” with the wind that was blowing but he suggested we might fish the Little Truckee River for trout. What the heck the girls had been up until the wee hours of the morning and weren’t likely to be up and about until at least noon. So I took off in the early morn to meet this guy and as I was driving through the blowing snow thought to myself……I left Alaska to go to the snow??? What is wrong with this picture.
Anyway I found Gerald and we headed on up to the Little Truckee….he told me there was a chance at some pretty decent browns which were up spawning. As we hiked 15 minutes to the stream I nearly hacked up a lung….I asked Gerald what the altitude was….something like 7,000 feet filtered back to my feeble mind. Living at sea level this sucked….quite literally and especially since I look like the Pillsbury dough boy.
Anyway he sets me up with this itty bitty teeny weenie little nymph critters, size 18 with a size 18 san juan worm. I’m used to using some beefy stuff on the end of my flyrod here in Alaska…..I needed microscopes to see these things…plus we were using 6X tippet…more like a spider web filament if you ask me. This is a designated “wild” stretch of the river…though it seemed quite tame to me. After a good hour or so of fishing and Gerald getting one 12” rainbow he stumbled onto a nice hen brown:
So we were 3 hours into our little 4 hour excursion when I finally stumbled onto a fish and managed to “gently” set the hook instead of uses my normal “hook the marlin” set. I was fast onto one pig buck brown with a bad attitude and me using gossamer tippet. Out of necessity we were forced to chase the big sucker downstream. About 3 or so minutes into playing the beast I felt the san juan worm he had taken pull out of his mouth and my heart just sank……BUT beyond luck the tiny beadheaded nymph had latched onto the brute also and after another 4 or 5 minutes and 30 yards of stream Gerald got a net under the fish. What a beauty….25” of mean, male brown trout….my personal best brownie on a fly:
For me the morning was complete and I just said let’s head in cause we ain’t gonna top that. Gerald said it’s the largest brown he’s ever seen in that little spit of a river….so that made me feel good….and lucky.
Made it back to the condo before the girls were even ready to head out for the day….garnering myself a few bonus points with La Heffa (my wife). Unbeknownst to her I was secretly conspiring with Gerald to get another half day fishing on Lake Tahoe. As it turned out the next day was windy so I took the girls and we went horseback riding. This picture kind of makes me feel like Ben Cartwright in Bonanza….3 daughters instead of sons…ha (turns out that the Bonanza series was actually filmed in North Lake Tahoe):
Wednesday was my day to drive 2 hours to Lake Pyramid and catch my lahontan cutthroat trout. After an early morning drive and a cruise down to the lake the guide decided the wind direction made it a “no go” for launching a boat that day. Another joyful 2 hour ride back to Tahoe and the girls were still in the sack….there went my chance at the fish I really wanted out of this trip……bummer.
So Thursday we wandered around Virginia City…..cool, old mining town….my wife loved the cemetery (is that weird?....should I be worried?). Then Friday we went down and stayed in Reno for our last two days. Friday night the girls were up late and I knew they wouldn’t be waking before noon on Saturday so I called one of the guides on Pyramid Lake and he referred me to someone who was open Saturday morning. Well I presented my plans for approval to Her Royal Majesty and she decided to let me go…..yippee, another chance at oncorhyncus clarki henshawi….the lahontan cutthroat.
Saturday, early I cruised out to Pyramid Lake and we were off….bleak scenery around this lake as it is high desert.
Due to it being a terminal lake…..the water flows into it from Lake Tahoe and the surrounding streams and remains there….no outflow to any ocean…..the alkalinity of the lake is very high and only 3 species live there…..the lahontan cutthroat, the tui chub (baitfish), and a non native, the sacramento perch (which happens to be the only indigenous sunfish west of the Rocky Mountains). We began trolling on downriggers as the water was in the high fifties on the surface and, evidently, the preferred temp for the cutts is 52 degrees. After 3 hours we had had only 1 bump but then finally I hooked up and landed my lahontan cutthroat:
Caught a smaller one later and then was back to Reno where the family took in the Nevada Reno Wolfpack football game Saturday night. It was darn chilly and we all dressed warm…..can’t figure why my wife didn’t want to be scene with me:
On Halloween we flew home….very bumpy ride all the way. The moral of this trip is that sometimes you can have things not happen as you want but the experience can still be a good one. Only fished for about 8 hours and only caught 3 fish but I caught my sought after lahontan and caught a personal best brown trout on the fly….very satisfying.
Enjoy,
Brian
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Originally Posted by FSHNLIC
