The Land of Pharaohs

Blake, Mikey, Kelly, and I took the long jaunt west to the land of pharaohs to chase overgrown Lahontans.  The anticipation as this trip came closer was high for me as reports from the year were pretty poor.  And forecasts of possible snow and cold the entire time we were there gave cause for some concern on top of the already poor fishing.  Many reports abounded of solid sticks and experienced local guys getting completely skunked over multiple days.  Good days had people barely hitting double digits.  But we had an RV rented and plans set, so we just took off on faith and prayer that the fish would play.  Also, a 19.2 pounder had been caught from shore in February....and after all....that's why we play here!

We got a late start on Wednesday night but eventually were able to hit the road after loading up all the gear, doing our grocery shopping for the weekend, and putting down a Double-Double, Animal-style/Protein style for the road!  The winds and rains hit us early in the trek but I-80 cooperated enough to get us to Dover to see a couple team players provide entertainment for the others in rolling some bones.  After losing enough we hit the road again and took up shop in Elko for the night.  Having the RV made it sure nice to just find a parking lot and call it a night.  Of course we had to set up the tying station and turn out bugs of all sorts on the drive out.




Thursday morning it was on and you could cut the anticipation with a knife!  We were stoked to hit the water and give it a try.  We hit Crosby's for the permits and then started hitting beaches and talking to folk.  After some conversations it became apparent that Pelican was the place to be if we wanted a shot.  The wind was relentless, and it was right in our faces.  It was game on!



Blake was able to get us on the board first.  We weren't sure if Mikey was going to join us on the lake for this trip as he was just hanging in the RV and not even ready to roll.  Little did we know that he was just harnessing the mojo because he followed not long after Blake's with what ended up being the best fish of the trip for us in a nice 25-inch buck, but Thursday afternoon/evening was slow for us.  That was it.




We soaked our sorrows in Diet Mountain Dew and Better-Cheddar Brats for the night and came up with a game plan for the next morning.  The guys just west of us were slaying them while we sat and watched.  We figured out that their 'mids were only 3.5-4 feet down.  Ours were more like 7+.  We made the adjustments accordingly, and went to bed with high hopes for the morning.  The morning started out slow in the beginning, but then Kelly turned on the switch.  Kelly was stripping beetles and was just on fire.  I was 'mid fishing and started to get some love.  Mikey was stripping as well and doing okay.  Blake had caught one as well.  We were all on the board after a couple hours of fishing and Kelly was putting on a clinic for all to see.







The morning bite subsided after our group probably doing the best in the morning from anyone in the area.  We had brought close to 10 fish to hand between us in a few hours, most of those coming from Kelly.  Mikey disappeared for a while and we couldn't figure what he was doing.  Little did we know that in no time we'd have BBQ beef sandwiches delivered hot to us on the shoreline, right off our ladders!



You're the man Mikey!  The afternoon cooled off and the wind wasn't cooperating with us as much.  We tried different tactics and Mikey even brought out the spin-rod for a bit to get a little more length on the casts.  It pretty much shut off for the middle portion of the day though.




In the afternoon and evening the fish played a little bit more for us, but not too much.  I think we finished the day with 15 between us.  We figured that Friday was good as it was, so we'd just proceed with the same plan for Saturday.  But what a difference a day makes!  We fished our tails off all morning and we didn't catch a thing.  In fact, the only person we saw even hooking up was a little ways down from us throwing a big, dark jig on spin gear.  There was much talk of hanging up the waders and calling it a trip.  But when you come this far to chase this fish, you stick it out.  Glad we did, even if the fishing wasn't hot.  We were each able to stick one more fish for the trip before we called it quits in the late afternoon.





We hit the road and made it back to Elko again before returning home on Sunday the rest of the way.  All-in-all the fishing was pretty un-spectacular.  I think we landed right around 20 fish in 2.5 days of fishing between 4 of us.  That isn't stellar by any measure.  But we talked to an old-timer that we met out there last year that was just arriving as we left.  He spent the week before there and had a hook-up at 8 AM on Thursday, and didn't have another bite until 6 PM on Saturday.  So it could have been A LOT worse for us.  And we were able to catch some pretty awesome fish.  Nothing in the double digit category, but Mikey's 25 incher was no slouch and almost every fish we caught was over 20 inches.  And for my money, these are the most beautiful trout there is out there.  There isn't anywhere else I know where you have an actual legitimate chance of catching a 30+ inch 10+ pound cutthroat on any given cast.  Literally every cast you have a chance of catching the fish of a lifetime.  Here are some of just the fish to send you on your way.







Thanks for an incredible trip fellas.  It's a special fishery.  This place gets in your blood.  I will be back.

Welcome to the Rock

The reports of tagged fish and prizes intrigued us enough to take a small armada up to Rockport to see if we could ice a couple fish.  I took my 5 year old and many others in the group had their kids along as well.  It was 2 degrees outside when we arrived to start drilling holes.  The kids had a blast going around on the ice with the sleds and even found a hill that entertained them for a long time.  It was good that they had fun, because the fishing was DEAD!  Out of 8 fishermen, most with 2 rods, only two fished were iced.  But one was a fish to remember.

Coop was fishing next to me and in a split second his rod completely disappeared!  It seriously didn't even bobble at all.  It was there, and a split second later, gone down the hole.  We sat and fretted about how big of a fish it must have been that had taken his rod that quickly without even a chance to grab it.  After a couple hours later, Coop finally had another hook up.  As he was bringing the fish up through the hole he noticed line hanging down below the fish.  As he continued to pull that line up.....low and behold, it was his rod!  What are the chances?  We all got a kick out of it and thought it was pretty cool.  Made for a fun story out of a pretty terrible day of fishing.

Here is a picture of the monster that was still hooked to his other ice rod.

Rio Verde Rainbows

Paul, Trav and I went on an excursion to chase what we hoped would be larger fish.  The last couple years the health of the fish has seemed to increase over what was the down years of the mid-2000's.  We didn't find any real nice fish like we accustomed to finding.  In fact, we caught almost exclusively rainbows down from the dam.  You always catch a few more bows up there but I didn't catch a single brown below the dam at all.  Most were small rainbows that were beaming with color.

The flows were up from what they normally are at this time of year and it made for some different fishing as well.  The remnants of the insane flows that were reported at 10,000 cfs could be seen as portions of the boardwalk were washed away and you could see the water line on the rocks.  It was a great trip, even if the fishing was a little disappointing.  It is truly one of the prettiest areas around out there.




Evidence that the warning sign wasn't just blowing smoke!

Down South

I have always admired hot rainbows that have a propensity to grow large.  Today we were able to go to such a place.  The fishing was not fast and furious, and we didn't catch any trophy fish this trip, but we did land a handful of fish and they were hot!  One of these smaller fish took everything my 5 wt had to get it up off the bottom when it went on its run to the vegetation on the bottom.  It was a great day to get out.  There was a healthy amount of midges that hatched, a handful of calibaetis, and damsels were everywhere.

Rainbows in the Desert

It has been a very long spring, if that's what we call it.  Rivers are blown out all over the place, but ice has been coming off lakes everywhere.  This one has been ice free for quite some time.  Felt it was finally time to get out there.  The day was uncharacteristically warm in the morning, not even requiring a jacket.  The mornings in the high desert are not like this.  (it proved to be the calm before the storm)  No wind and warm makes for a pleasant day on the water.  But in a lake where the fishing is predicated on insect hatches, it made for some slow fishing early.  Later in the morning some clouds came in and the breeze picked up a little.  The fish started to get a little active as the bugs started to appear.  But it wasn't fast and furious.  We did manage a couple real nice fish before the wind blew us off the water around lunch time.

Go West, young man...

For years I have read about, watched videos, drooled at pictures, and battled an urge to go to the only stillwater I'm aware of that ladders are more prevalent than pontoon boats and funky bugs are the ticket to target massive native cutthroats.  It's not secret to anyone that I am talking about Pyramid Lake.  Generally the names of waters are absent from the posts here, but let's be honest, this will certainly be no secret.

For years I have wanted to head far west and target the famed Lahontan Cutthroat trout found in these alkaline rich waters.  This lake is managed by the Pyramid Lake Paiute Indian Tribe, and they do a terrific job keeping this an amazing trophy trout fishery.  And the famed ladder fishing is an event in and of itself.



So we all bought ladders, tied up wooly worms, shiny beetles, and various chironomid patterns, and we made the long trek west to give it a go.

We had hoped to get a few hours of fishing in before the day closed on our travel day.  Needless to say we arrived at the lake with great anticipation.  4 foot rollers tearing across the lake and crashing on the shore and a nearly white-out snow storm greeted us.  We bought our licenses and chatted with some of the regulars in the local bar in Sutcliff and headed out to make camp on the beach and hopefully get some fishing in.  Camp was simple, but convenient as we rolled out of bed and were literally within 20 yards of the water.


The storm calmed significantly by the time we set camp and got dressed.  This is what the lake looked like as we waded out and threw a few casts before legal fishing ended that night.




It was amazing, the waves (and the wind) never quit coming the entire time we were there, and almost had an oceanic feel to it as you waded out or sat on the beach at different times.  I've heard people try to describe what is almost indescribable pull when talking about Pyramid.  After visiting briefly, I can confirm that it has an almost mystical allure to it.  I don't know if it is the brilliant blue-green waters, the wave swept sand bottoms, or the double digit pound cutthroats that are frequently caught here, but this place pulls you in.  We didn't get any action that night, and went to bed hoping for success the next day.

It took a little bit on our first morning to figure out exactly what we were doing.  We watched many people in the line hooking up pretty much from sun up on.  After some trial and error we were able to get on the board with some nice fish.  That morning we caught a handful of fish in the 21-24 inch range.  Here are a few specimens:








After figuring out that there were a couple colors that seemed to be the ticket it was time for some lunch time tying to stock/re-stock the boxes for the afternoon.


After nailing down some color combinations that the fish had liked at the vise we put a decent number of fish in the net that afternoon/evening.  And some of the beetles took some teeth marks to show for it.












The one thing that was constant was the wind.  From a decent breeze to some pretty heavy gusts and everything in between, the wind kept coming.  And intermittent storms came in and out throughout our time there.




 But the storms would eventually blow out and the days usually ended pretty nice.


The big fish we came seeking alluded us the first day.  We did witness a 29 inch 9+ pounder caught a next to us, but we didn't get anything over 24 ourselves.  But who could complain sitting around a camp fire at night roasting jalapeno and cheddar brats and talking about the massive fish we were going to catch the next day?


Our second day at the lake proved much more difficult.  The bad weather we had experienced the day of our arrival had dropped the water temps almost 8 degrees and the fishing suffered greatly because of it.  I was able to hook into and battle a pretty nice fish early in the day, but I did not land it.  That is the only tension any of the three of us felt all day.  It was a tough day for everyone and many of the regulars who were there and fish it often were gone by lunch as they knew it wasn't going to pick up.  For us who have an 8 hour drive to get home, that wasn't an option, so we just kept fishing.  Threw everything we could at them, but it was just tough.  No fish to be had on Saturday.  But we did get some solid half-time entertainment when Blake got caught in Mikey's guard, got a little too high and Mikey put him in a triangle.


There were a couple die hards that stuck it out, but not many besides us to see a beautiful end to the day, even if there were no fish to be had.


It was a great trip.  It was a long jaunt, but one that was worth every second, even with the fishing not being up to par.  It's unfortunate, we missed it by a day and half.  The 5 days before we arrived were said to be some of the best of the spring and numerous 9+ pound fish had been caught right where we were fishing.  There were even multiple 14+ pound fish caught along the same beach in the days leading up to our arrival.  But I guess that's why it's called "fishing" and not "catching."  I won't speak for my compadres, but I will be back to Pyramid Lake.  You can bet on that.  And I am sure that the same mystical allure that haunted my dreams last night will continue until the day comes when I get back.

Steelies

The fellas took a trip to fish for some steelhead.  The conditions were tough, mother nature did not cooperate.  Lots of snow, and tons of slush in the river by the end of the trip that made fishing nearly impossible.  But there were some fish to be had.