An Early Season Guide to Pyramid Lake from a Know It All Blowhard

Pyramid Lake, it’s huge, stark, and intimidating.  There are a lot of stories of sunken vessels, drowning, and strong winds.  All of these stories are true, but the risks versus the rewards are certainly worthwhile.  It’s a huge lake, and it has huge fish.  I’ve been fortunate enough to catch several of the huge Lahontan Cutthroat Trout that the lake is known for.  Although I am not even remotely as good as some Pyramid Lake veterans, I’ve spent a whole lot of time out at the lake.  I’ve had a respectable start to my career, and here are some of my “expert” thoughts and observations in regards to the early season.  I’m going to define the early season as the period from the opener of October 1rst until about Christmas time.  Around Christmas time, the water temperature usually gets really cold and the fall pattern breaks down.  The fish begin thinking about spawning shortly thereafter, and that’s a whole different can of worms.  I’ll write about that in the near future.

Early in the season, you can bet on the fact that fishing out of a boat will produce way more fish than off the bank.  Alright, we all know of somebody that knocked them dead one day at Blockhouse in October tossing a spoon.  I like to paint with a broad brush and make generalizations, so I will stand by my statement that you are better off waiting to fish Pyramid in winter or spring than in the fall if you don’t have a boat.  If you have a boat, it’s totally possible to have 60-100 fish days in early October; especially if the weather is still warm and summer like.  As the weather cools the scores will drop, but the fish will generally get larger.  2012 was an exceptional fall season, and a lot of big fish were caught in early October.  Hear me now and believe me later, the start of the 2013 season will be very similar.  It will be possible to catch 60 fish in day, and one of them might be 20lbs.

There are two different kinds of boat fisherman on Pyramid Lake.  The first type is the local derelict and the out of towner type that doesn’t care or know what’s going on.  These are the local guys that want to get away from their wives for the day, and are more concerned about catching a buzz than catching a hog.  The out of towners lack the know how to consistently catch big fish, and the derelicts lack the effort.  The second type of boat fisherman works hard to catch big fish.  Instead of putting a cheapo Wal-Mart spoon down behind a 2 oz. banana sinker and just dragging it around until a hapless trout eats it, the diligent angler works the bottom and the structure that holds big fish.  Trophy cutthroat over ten pounds are as structure oriented as a largemouth bass.  So, if you want to catch at least one per season instead of one per decade, you have to be willing to lose some lures, downrigger balls, and stay on your toes.  It’s a lot easier to set a rod in a rod holder and aimlessly drag a lure around than it is to work the bottom with a downrigger or a three way rig.  If I am out on Pyramid, I am going to be constantly working the bottom.  This entails me standing right next to my downrigger; raising and lowering my lure accordingly. You can also bet that I’m going to drop some gear on the bottom of the lake if I’m in the strike zone.  It became cost prohibitive to buy downrigger balls, so I started molding my own 15lb balls and scrounging up lead from anybody I could.  It probably just emboldened me, and I worked the bottom even harder.   By Thanksgiving of 2009, I had lost eight fifteen pound downrigger balls and probably a couple hundred bucks worth of lures.

When I troll or jig Pyramid, I am going to be looking for rocks, tufa outcroppings, or steep ledges on the bottom of the lake in 35-100ft of water.  That’s where the big boys will be holding.  You may not even see them on your fish finder if they are holding really tight to the bottom.  The best plan of attack for these fish is to set up your trolling run on the edge of the structure, and then be ready to lift or lower your gear to grind through the habitat as you motor through.  For me, I don’t like slow moving lures. I want something that draws a reaction bite and can be pulled quickly.  A lot of guys swear by a slow moving Flatfish that thrives around 1.5MPH, and can only be pulled up to about 2.0 MPH tops.  I’m not happy unless I’m going in the 2.5-3.3 mph range, and that means I don’t rely on the old standby Flatfish.  I’ve had much better success with a 5.0 Apex or a Lyman.  These lures don’t even properly work unless you get them moving at a brisk speed.  They both draw strikes with their erratic action.  I look at the boring rhythmic movement of a Flatfish or Kwikfish, and I see why so many fish follow them without striking.  In case you can’t tell, I’m not on the Yakima or Luhr Jensen pay roll; although they are both fine companies, and I don’t want my outlandish statements to bar me from possible future employment.  Take a look at the skip beat action of an Apex or Lyman moving at 2.5-3 mph and you’ll understand why they get curious fish to strike.  However, there is one reason to use a slower moving Flatfish, and that is if you don’t have downriggers.  Without downriggers it is still possible to have success.  Instead of a 15lb downrigger ball, go with a spreader bar like what you would use for trolling for river salmon.  Tie on a 4 ft leader of 20lb test mono to your lure, and then an 18” dropper to a 4 to 16oz. sinker depending on how fast you want to go, how deep you want to fish, and how far behind the boat you want your lure to be.  By fishing the Flatfish with the rod in your hand, you can provide all the erratic action needed to draw strikes.  If you diligently work the bottom by reeling in line as needed or letting out more line, the lure will speed up and slow down, and the erratic speed changes will get curious fish to eat.

Here are some other thoughts to maximize your experiences in the fall at Pyramid:  If the weather is nice, by all means go camping. There are a lot of great places to camp on the west shore of the lake.  Pelican Beach is very convenient if you are going to be fishing from a boat, because the main boat ramp is located there.  Unfortunately, it is also the most popular beach on the lake, and it can be fairly busy.  The North Nets is a nice sandy beach, and during early fall it will be a ghost town.  The North Nets is a family beach, and there is no booze allowed.  The South Nets allows alcohol, but you need to be savvy about where you park if you don’t want to get stuck.  There are some mucky spots around the S. Nets to avoid, so don’t drive too close to the water.  Regardless of where you imbibe your spirits, there are no glass containers allowed.  Another good spot to camp is up near Warrior’s Point on the northwest end of the lake.  In the fall, it will be very quiet up there, and your only neighbors will be coyotes and chukar.  You should also know that it gets unbelievably windy in this country, so don’t expect to weather the elements in your 25$ Big 5 Pup Tent.  A good sturdy wall tent, tent trailer, RV, or cab-over is much more substantial lodging.

At any of these aforementioned beaches there is no running water.  The tribe has installed pit toilets that are kept relatively clean, and that’s the perfect segway for a crass anecdote.  Please skip ahead of you don’t find scat humor amusing.  It’s my duty to tell this story to prevent future conundrums.  I am only the messenger, but I’m laughing to myself while I type this.  Here goes:  A certain friend of mine from Colorado went up to the toilet to heed nature’s call.  No, it wasn’t #1 calling, but #1’s much worse sibling, #2.  So, my unfortunate pal makes a half sprint half butt clenching trot to the commode.  You know the cadence of this run.  Everybody has done it or witnessed it.  It’s the “trying to keep my composure, please don’t anybody notice me, but I really need to hustle run.”  He gladly makes it to the fortress of solitude and does his business, but to his dismay and horror there is no T.P. to be found.  When the angler who shall remain nameless returned to camp, we couldn’t help but notice the sleeves of his long sleeve shirt had been ripped off and it had become a muscle shirt.  Everybody in the group stared in wonder for a while until somebody finally addressed the elephant in the room, “Hey, what happened to the sleeves on your shirt anonymous angler?”  To which my anonymous pal replied, “There weren’t any “bleep” tickets in there, I had to do what I had to do!”  Of course, 6 guys went to the ground laughing hysterically, but the moral of this almost tragedy is to always pack your own T.P. and not trust that it will be there in your darkest hour.

Lastly, if you are an out of towner, you owe it to yourself to stop by Crosby’s Lodge in Sutcliffe on the west side of the lake.  If you like looking at photos of huge fish, Crosby’s literally has hundreds of photos of cutthroat over ten pounds on their walls.  Not to mention, if you catch a 10lb plus cutthroat, you can take it in to the store, they will weigh it and give you a hat pin that designates you have made it into the 10lber club.  Crosby’s also has quite the assortment of supplies including, ice, booze, groceries, tackle, and even some basic automotive supplies.  They also sell fishing licenses, will cook you a greasy burger, nachos, or chicken wings, and they have lodging available in case you don’t want to camp.  They even have a bar featuring live music and a DJ on Saturday nights.

Last year we saw monster Pilot Peak strain Lahontan Cutthroats to 24lbs, and this year I predict there will be fish over 30lbs.  I believe that we may see a new world record topping the previous record of 41lbs in the near future, so go out and catch one of these beautiful trophies.