Pyramid Lake: Fly Fishing for the World’s Largest Cutthroat Trout

Pyramid Lake, Nevada, is one of the best Stillwater fisheries across the globe. It is located a little less than an hour away from Reno, Nevada. The Lake sits right on an Indian Reservation where the Paiute Tribe grants access to non-tribal members to fish. It is a splendid opportunity for anglers from all over to pay a fee and get on the water.

By JOSEPH EVANS Photos by JOSEPH EVANS, ZACHARY HEATH and RASMUS OVESEN

The alkaline freshwater in Pyramid Lake grows the largest strain of Cutthroat trout in today’s existence, the Lahontan Cutthroat trout. There are two strains; The pilot peak strain, which comes from the hatchery, bread amongst their broodstock program, and the native Summit strain. Both grow to extraordinary sizes, although the Pilot Peak strain can reach 20lbs as it feasts on a small baitfish called Tui Chub, Cui-ui suckers and filter feeds aquatic insects. The Cui-ui is a unique prey source because most don’t know that this sucker or baitfish lives up to 40 years old.

The geography of Pyramid lake differs from the massive rock structures of Tufa rock; it looks like limestone, an old coral coming from the ancient lake Lahontan. The rocks stand tall, round, and wide. When standing and fishing off of them, it feels as if one is on Mars, some would say. On the other hand, it stretches far as the eye can see with small, gravel beaches.

Up on the ladders

Anglers will fish from boats or, most commonly, bank fish. The giant fish don’t stay far off the shoreline as the majority of their food is there. Anglers will fish right off the rocks, bring a ladder or line up one by one right off the shelves or drop-offs along those beaches. The ladder helps the angler set up further offshore and reach deeper water, further off of the shelf, also for sitting down. Standing sun-up to sundown gets tiring!

“The best fishing is right as the sun rises and right as it is going down”

For the last two years, I have been making trips to Pyramid Lake to chase this immaculately sized trout. This year, I brought with me my girlfriend Annika and two close friends, Bradley and Emily. What most don’t understand is that fishing this place is an absolute grind. The best fishing is right as the sun rises and right as it is going down.

The fish tend to push Tui chub into the rocky bowls, shorelines, and coves. The low-light also seems to make the cutthroat trout feel more comforted from predators to come shallow near our flies.

The weather can be brutal, with extremely strong winds and cold storms that appear out of nowhere. The trick to catching these fish is keeping a line wet. As important as your rig is, it is key just to be fishing 24/7. Since these fish are constantly cruising the shorelines, one may never know when their fly could be in line for an upcoming 20lber.

How to fish Pyramid Lake

The two different methods to fish Pyramid Lake is simply choosing a beach, preferably on a point or with an aggressive shelf, and wading or bringing a ladder. Off the beach, many anglers will choose to strip a full-sinking line, dredging the bottom with a big fly upfront like a streamer or conehead bugger to kick up the sand and trailing a beetle pattern to float up behind the first one.

“We picked a spot that had a deep, narrow cove surrounded by rocks”

The other method is indicator fishing with a floating line. Also, effective off the beaches from foot or ladder, but most commonly fished from rockier structures where midges hatch by the hour, by the thousands, millions. Using chironomids and balanced leeches underneath a bobber can, has and will produce. This is the method we chose to fish this year.

We picked a spot that had a deep, narrow cove surrounded by rocks where schools of Cutthroat from the depths would randomly push in to frenzy and feed. The best method when indicator fishing is to use switch rods and Scandi floating lines to roll cast these rigs out further offshore without a backcast.

We used a double chironomid rig in a size 12. A tungsten chironomid on the bottom tied with a loop knot and a tag end three to five feet above with a brass bead or weightless chironomid. I enjoy fishing lighter color midges on my tag end to represent an emergence and darker, heavier chironomids down deeper. Snowcone midges or any color Zebra midge does just fine while using 3x tippet. These fish have become pickier over the years, although nothing beats a snowcone pattern. It is fun experimenting with new colors from home-tied patterns, though some days there is a favorite or hot pick.

Lastly, A big bobber is key to keep your flies afloat in the waves and consistent up and down tension beneath the bobber in the column. There is no worry that these monster Cutthroat will not rip it under.

The season

The Pyramid Lake fishery is most prominent in the winter months, November to April. This is when the fish are most shallow and become easiest to target as a shoreline angler.

In the fall, the fish are fattening up for the winter; bigger flies and balanced leeches through January will produce fewer eats, but the largest fish.

As the transition from January to April occurs, big fish are still around to spawn, but the numbers increase with it. Don’t be surprised having a 30-fish hay day of fish in the 18-24” range in April.

Aside from bearing through the wind and rainstorms, this is one special place, 4 AM wake-up calls and a parched appetite all day to chase a fish of a lifetime. The fish are immaculately large and being beside friends dawn to dusk with a line in the water couldn’t better produce some great stories, laughs and memories.

Throughout the summer months, Pyramid Lake anglers build utter excitement whenever it crosses their mind to freeze their butts off and watch bobbers drop.