Pyramid Lake NV

[JLHirsch]

Hello Larry ,
My name is Jordan and I recently made the move from Southern California to Sparks Nevada just outside of Reno . There is a lake near by that has giant Lahontan Cutthroat Trout and from what I have heard people from all over the world come here in hopes of catching big trout . Every morning when I go I get on it fairly early and have befriended some of the local older dudes that have been fishing there for over 50 years now . Five months have gone by and I am getting on it probably twice a week now and each time I go I am catching them on a wide variety of spoons and different colors and can't seem to find a steady pattern that really catches a high number of fish (fishing from shore). My count is usually 2 to 3 trout each time I go . The trout at Pyramid are notorious for following and I have seen it numerous times when on my retrieve they just have there nose right on it when I see my spoon coming into the shallows haha . I also tried some lures that guys use for salmon fishing called Super Vibrax #6 that catches them . This local fellow Kenny is always saying "you never know what these fish want" and I am starting to believe that because you can catch them on a wide variety of colors . I caught one out there that was close to 7 lbs and it nabbed my spoon right as I was about to get the spoon out of the water , it was nuts ! It put up a great fight and I landed it .
Anyways the fish out there are pretty weird it seems like and it's hard to get a read on what works when ya know ?
Have you heard of this lake ? And do you have any recommendations on lures ? Different kinds of retrieves for trout ?
I would love to start experimenting and making my own lures so I can catch some bigger fish .

[dahlberg]

Hi JL
The really big ones are not reachable from shore most of the time. Only when the water is cold.
There should be huge lake trout, actually the strain from Lake Superior, in that lake if I am not mistaken.
Try reeling much, much, much faster and/or using a snapping ripping retrieve where you nap down with the reel handle and the same time as you snap down with your rod, and at the same time reel very quickly. Cast as far as you possibly can. Have at least 4 pauses or stops in your retrieve. Roam the shoreline and look for grooves and changes in bottom. Look at charts and find where the deep basin abuts the shoreline. Try one long line out with a dead or live bait if legal. Sail them out on a kite or big balloon if there's an off shore wind.
good luck!
L

[aka anglinarcher]

Larry's advise is dead on perfect, all I can do is add the following:

You have a different kind of lake there at Pyramid, shallow sloping shore lines, sandy to muddy bottoms, alkaline water....

I use to fish it in the late 70's, so everything I say may be obsolete. Still, we have the Lahontan Cutthroat in some of Washington State's waters; transplanted from Pyramid lake years ago. I assume some of what works for us will work for you.

First, Larry is dead on about how hard it is to fish from shore and get the big ones. I don't know if they still do this, but years ago we use to load up with only the items we needed to fish with, then we would dress in our insulated waders. We would carry a step ladder into the water with us and walk as far as we could until the water almost came over our waders. We would then set up the step ladder, climb to the top, then fish from there. That extra few feet of depth often was a matter of a hundred yards from the shore in the area we fished. As you can guess, tall people had an advantage. LOL

I remember that what is now called a black woolly bugger was our best fly pattern. The best results were had during the early spring (cold water), using leach or minnow patterns. I was not into hardware then, but I suspect that you can translate this hardware as well. In Washington State, we find large spoons and minnow lures work well, but again, think cold water periods.

[JLHirsch]

Yep .. Most of that lake is sandy bottom almost muddy in some parts . The lake is massive but there are some beaches that have a real abrupt drop off . I'm talkin' like less than 10 feet from where the water is lapping up on the shore . Spider Point and Sand Hole Beach are the places I have fished at because I put on my insulated waders and I get out about just above waist deep after about 7 steps and you can just see the drop off ( kind of freaky haha ) . Talked to a guy out there that has been fishing there for a long time and said the drop offs in some spots are 150 feet ! Nuts .

Seen a lot of guys fishing out there using the step ladders and all that but I prefer to just wade out there as far as I can before I fall off that ledge and just cast as far as I can LOL . I probably should be on the ladder though haha it would help .

The black wooly bugger is a hot item out there for fly outfits but you can rig the same flys onto a spinning outfit . So far what I have noticed is anything dark works real well . For some reason my dad and I always hook them on either a dark brown and chrome spoon , or all black with red dots . Just the other day I caught one on a black marabou jig ... all black tied with dark red feathers . It was really fun catching it on a jig and would rather do it that way because the jig is only a single hook where as the spoons have those treble hooks and getting it out of there mouths can take a while . I even have the barbs smashed . Correct me if I am wrong but fishing with those marabou jigs is almost like a bass tactic right ? Kind of bouncing it off the bottom then reel and drag it a few times then bounce again ? What are your thoughts on getting on a kayak out there and dropping a good size tube jig ... say about 3 inches in length ?

Early spring is when the best bite is from what I have heard and they say you can see real big ones just swimming in the shallows around you when they come up to spawn .

We have had a very rainy , cold , snowy early winter in Nevada and the reports for Pyramid were always fair to good for the shore fishermen . This past week and a half the weather switched extremely fast into a real warm trend and the last 2 times I have gone I fished for loooong time and didn't even get a hit on the end of my line . Is this due to real warm weather or a front of some sort ? I am not real knowledgeable on weather patterns and how it effects the fishing haha . What I am trying to get at is it seems like whenever it gets cold and ugly out it seems like the fish bite , compared to a bluebird day and warm out the bite slows down .

Sorry about the long posts and I know I am asking a lot of questions .
P.S. Is there anyway I can post a photo or video ?