I first heard of Pyramid Lake back in August 2021 when I stopped by Silver Creek Outfitters in Sun Valley Idaho. I was explaining to the kid at the shop that I had never caught a cutthroat and that it was on my bucket list. He said they had good numbers of cutthroat across Idaho and recommended that I fish the East Fork of the Big Lost River if I was looking for big wild fish, but also that he couldn’t wait to take a trip out to Pyramid Lake in Nevada because it offered the best fishing for cutthroat in the world. This purported cutthroat mecca in Nevada was a strange concept to me, but per a quick Google search, I discovered that he wasn’t lying; Pyramid Lake holds some big monster cutthroat. I kept the thought in the back of my mind.
Fast forward to winter 2024. I was invited to a friend’s wedding in Reno, Nevada the weekend of May 18. I searched “Reno, Nevada” in Google Maps and zoomed out. Oh shit, there it was, Pyramid Lake. The cutthroat mecca was only a 40 min drive from the city. I tossed around the idea of booking a couple extra days to fish Pyramid Lake. Lake fishing isn’t really my favorite or my forte, and some quick research suggested that May was a bad time to fish the lake. One guy who runs a guide service posted a YouTube video explaining the different seasons of Pyramid and mentioned that he doesn’t even fish the lake in May because it can be so tough (open season is Oct – June). He also mentioned that during June, the fish are generally found in good numbers in deeper water, and that he has started taking clients out in float tubes so they’re able to access that deeper water. Great.
I thought about it for a while. Fishing a five-mile wide lake that I had never been to during the worst part of the season seemed pretty daunting. I also knew I’d be pretty spent from the wedding festivities. However, I also knew that I would be ashamed of myself if I passed up an opportunity to catch the biggest species of cutthroat in the world. I made up my mind and booked two extra days thinking that if I fished 16 hours, I should be able to catch at least one fish.
I booked my stay at the WorldMark Reno by Wyndham. When I arrived in the lobby, a family was complaining about how it was too hot in their room to which the desk guy replied “did you keep the blinds closed?” Great, I thought, this is what I get for booking a cheaper option. However, when I checked into my room on the third floor, I was pleasantly surprised. The room was at a comfortable temperature with an in-room thermostat. The room even had a kitchen, full fridge, dining table. living area with a couch, and washer/dryer. Damn, this was a pretty good deal. I was essentially staying in a one bed, one bath apartment with central AC and in-room washer/dryer. The room was clean and actually looked quite new. My only complaint was I couldn’t figure out how to use the Wi-Fi without paying, so I just went without because I have unlimited cellular data and had good enough service in the room.
On Saturday morning before the wedding, I stopped by Reno Fly Shop, which was only a 10-minute walk from my hotel. I was quickly greeted by the friendly staff, one of whom I talked with for a few minutes. I told him I was thinking about fishing Pyramid (like I hadn’t already made up my mind). He said May can be a tough time to fish the lake and that this year had been especially tough at times. Great. He then recommended that I indicator fish some reservoirs instead. I thought yeah, fuck that. I didn’t come out here to bobber fish some ponds. I looked around the shop for a bit, which had the best selection of 3/16” tungsten beads that I had ever seen, as well as all the materials I needed would need to tie streamers (bugger marabou, beads, hooks, dubbing, etc). Once I had grabbed some tying supplies, I asked the guy if he thought I would catch one cutthroat if fished Pyramid for two full days. He said I should be able to catch at least one. That’s all I needed to hear.
I got to bed around 2 am after the wedding on Saturday night. I knew an early rise wasn’t in the cards, so I planned to get to the lake around 10:30 am and spend the day scouting. The drive up to Pyramid was quite easy. Three turns and about 40 minutes led me Sutcliffe, the only town on the lake. In this town there is one building that is the motel, gift shop, restaurant, bar, fly shop, and information center. I stopped in to buy a hat but also ended up buying a couple more packs of dubbing because they had some really neat colors. On my way into town, I didn’t notice much in the way of formal access to the shoreline, only dirt roads, so I asked the very friendly cashier if they had any maps available. She pointed over to a map on the wall and said “right over there honey, take a picture with your phone.” After seeing the map, I knew I was in for it.
Because I still had cell service in town, I quickly Googled “shore fishing access Pyramid Lake.” I cross referenced the recommendations from Google with the picture of the map I had taken. Warrior Point Park was one of the matches. The park was about twenty minutes north of the town. I plugged the park into Google Maps and drove up the lake. I lost cell service about ten minutes into the drive, but Maps held out. I turned down a dirt road that led me down to the lake shore. I wasn’t really sure where to stop so I more or less picked a random spot between two groups of recreators, hopped out, threw on my waders, and started casting.
The shoreline was pretty easy to wade and fish, with a good gradient to access some deeper water a bit farther out. I also saw some boats and kayaks farther out on the lake fishing, so I figured I had to be in a reasonably good spot. Visibility was also good at around four feet or more. The bottom was a combination of sand and larger rocks, some of which had green moss that was a bit slippery so crampons would have probably been helpful. I started off throwing a heavy streamer (lead wrap, tungsten bead) with a four lb fluoro tippet to an eight lb fluoro leader. To my shock and awe, I saw a cutthroat the size of a grass carp cruise by about ten feet in front of me, but I wasn’t able get my fly in front of it. Holy shit, I thought. I might be outmatched with my 6 wt travel rod.
I realized that I probably wasn’t getting deep enough using just a weighted streamer and floating line, so I opted to throw on my 10 ft, 4 ips sink tip (VersiLeader by RIO). I knew chucking a heavy fly with a sink tip was asking a lot of my travel 6 wt rod, but I was able to cast about 20 yards into reasonably deep water with it. No risk it no biscuit.
I beat what was probably a three-hundred-yard stretch of shoreline to death with my streamer. I casted out, let the fly sink, stripped back, stepped right (or left) and repeated. About three hours into my foray, I hooked up. No way, I thought. I set the hook and raised my rod. The weight on the end of my line felt kind of deep and heavy but I thought I felt some headshakes and I knew that because of where I had been fishing there was no way it was a snag or some sort of garbage on the bottom. About five seconds later my streamer came flying out of the water. Shit. I checked it for scales or debris, nothing. The hook was clean. Guess I had lost the fish. God damnit. I knew I had to make the most of every opportunity and that I had just blown one bigtime. I didn’t know what else I could’ve done other than kept my rod tip lower and applied better side pressure. Barbless hooks can be pretty unforgiving.
I fished Warrior for about another half hour, but a storm was rolling in from the west. My biggest gripe was the cloud cover that made it difficult to see what I was casting into and a bit tricky to wade. Unfortunately, the weather also compromised by ability to spot some of the clumps of vegetation that were floating to the surface, so my fly started coming in with shit all over it. Once the rain started, I packed it in and decided to drive south where there appeared to be clear skies.
On my way south I pulled off to have lunch at the beach near Sutcliffe (peanut butter, a banana, and protein bars). The clouds passed overhead with some additional light rain. While I had cell service, I did some additional research to see if I could find an area with a steep drop off so I could access deeper water close to shore. Sandhole and Blockhouse were recommended, so I headed south.
I stopped at Sandhole first, but the drop there wasn’t as close to shore as I had hoped and the water looked unpromising otherwise, so I decided to continue heading south to find Blockhouse. The access road to Blockhouse isn’t labeled, so I just inferred it was the next access point south of Sandhole. I got down to the water and found a much steeper drop. I was staring into the abyss only a few feet from shore. I fished the drop and the sand ledges to the north and south of it. I found that I wasn’t really able to get down deep with just my sink tip, so fishing the deep drop was more or less a futile effort. I resorted to running my streamer along the drop in the hopes that I could rile a fish up from the depths, but no luck. When fishing along the drop I ended up snagging a sucker that I quickly netted and released. By now it was around 5 pm and I was exhausted. I decided to call it so I could get home at a reasonable hour and get an early start the next day.
On Monday I awoke around 6 am. I wanted to get out as early as possible because I though the fish would be closer to shore earlier in the day. I left around 7 am and got to Warrior around 8 am. My plan was to beat Warrior to death because it was the only place I had a confirmed fish sighting. Upon arrival, I was greeted with clear skies and a stiff northeast wind. I knew the northeast wind would be a problem, and sure enough, when I got down to the beach the lake was all riled up with wind whipping right in my face. I can usually find a way to cut through the wind when casting, so that wasn’t as much of a concern but what was disappointing was the choppy water, which limited how far out I could wade without the waves breaking over the top of my waders. The dealbreaker though was the poor visibility closer to shore. The silt/sand at the beach bottom was all churned up limiting visibility to about one foot or less for the first ten or so yards into the lake.
I knew fishing Warrior wasn’t an option with the poor visibility, so I decided to head south to find cleaner water. At this point I resorted to looking out the window as I drove along the main road that traces the west side of the lake to try and find a rocky point or bay that would provide some sort of protection from the wind. I spotted a rocky point somewhere on my drive that looked somewhat respectable. I pulled a U-turn and took a dirt road down to the lake shore. I drove until I found what I thought I had spotted from the main road. It was a sort of rocky point that jutted out into deep, crystal-clear water.
Although it had looked promising from above, it was hard to get into a position where I could find room to adequately back cast without either hitting rocks or falling into the abyss. I also didn’t see any signs of fish, no baitfish, birds, or boats. There was a beach to the south that I could get a solid vantage point of from the point but again, although the water was crystal clear I saw no signs of life and it appeared that the gradient at the beach was pretty shallow. I knew I didn’t have time to waste to I decided to drive back up to the main road and continue scouting to the south.
After continuing south for about ten minutes I saw water that looked promising. Only problem was it wasn’t obvious how to get down to it. There were no signs, just a few dirt roads to choose from. I figured I’d just pick one and see where it led. I took the dirt road and turned down another that allowed me to head in the direction of the water I was looking for. I eventually got down to some sort of plateau that overlooked the water I had seen from above. I parked, grabbed my rod, and scaled my way down to the shore. Bingo, this is exactly what I needed. The area was more or less a gravel point that led out to deeper water with a good gradient directly in front and a steeper drop just to the south. I started casting and about two minutes later saw a cutthroat porpoise just out of casting range. I decided this would be where I spent the rest of my day.
I worked the point and the drop to the south of it with my streamer (sink tip on). About ten minutes in I ripped a cast out into deeper water. I began my retrieval. Strip, strip, strip, stop. My line stopped. My heart jumped into my throat; I knew my fly was in too deep of water to catch bottom. I kept my rod tip low and set the hook. I then felt the same, deep weight and thumping headshakes that I had felt the day prior, only this time, the fly didn’t get thrown back at my face.
I prepared myself to feed line in case the fish took off while simultaneously trying to get the fish on the reel. Thankfully, I didn’t have much line pooled at my feet because the fish ate only a few strips in. It felt reasonably big, especially for a four lb tippet. I knew if it fought anything like a steelhead, I was in for it, and that one mistake on my part would mean game over.
Fortunately, the fish fought almost exactly like a lake trout. It stayed deep, with big headshakes and a couple attempts to run out into deeper water. It never broke the surface or burned my drag like steelhead typically do. Although the fish didn’t provide the same tactical challenge that a steelhead does, its size posed more than enough of a challenge on my relatively light outfit.
After what felt like an hour but was likely only a few minutes, I broke the fish’s will and was able to coerce it closer to shore. Now for the net. Only problem was my net was far too small. I knew my best shot was to net its head because fish can’t swim backwards (in case you didn’t know). I applied the maximum amount of pressure I thought I could get away with on 4 lb tippet, lifted my rod high, and scooped with the net. I caught the fish’s head, but the rest of it was hanging out of the net. Oh well, I thought, best I could do.
I rushed over to shore and barricaded the fish between my legs. I remember it being very muscular with a big wide head. I snuck my fingers into its mouth and popped the hook out. I kept the fish in the water and snapped a few pics. I wish I had gotten some better ones, but I didn’t want to rough the fish up, so I took what I could get and then let it loose. It quickly shot out back out into the depths of Pyramid Lake.
I left all my gear on the shore and scrambled up the cliff to the car with the hope I’d have cell service. I had good enough connection to send a couple pictures via text message. With the pictures now out in cyberspace, it was official; I had caught the legendary Lahontan cutthroat.
I climbed back down the cliff to my gear, my legs still wobbly from the adrenaline rush. A feeling of elation came over me. I had been fishing for about ten hours at that point (including the day prior). Cast after cast after cast, and it had finally paid off. The prospect of catching a Lahontan cutthroat at Pyramid in May from shore without a guide was easily one of the most challenging of my fishing career, but with every new challenge comes an opportunity for growth, and this was no exception.
With the pressure off, I felt free to enjoy the rest of the day. About ten minutes later, the only boat I had seen the entire day drove right up to the point I was fishing, just out of casting distance. I thought it was awesome <sarcasm> that the only boat on the lake had to be right where I was fishing. Whatever, I had already gotten what I had come for. The guys on the boat were snap jigging the drop off. They drifted the line for about a half hour, bagged one fish, and then moved on. I figured the fishing must’ve been tough if a few schmucks with a fish finder couldn’t get into em.
I fished for about a half hour longer before I climbed back up to the car for lunch. As I was finishing lunch, a guy and his son pulled up and scouted the water. I chatted with them, and they said they were from Reno. They said they had had some good days in May and June in recent years which was unheard of, but that this year was tough. They also said they like to fish spoons and tube jigs because it’s what worked, even though they didn’t like using them. I felt like they were somewhat apologetic because they knew I was a fly fisherman, which I thought was funny. I told them that was cool and that I’d see them down there.
I climbed back down the cliff for one last foray. This time, I fished the shoreline north of the point. The guy and his son fished the point using the classic step ladder method. I passed them after about an hour and they said they had no luck. They told me they were going to try Blockhouse but they were concerned about the moss, so I told them I was there yesterday and that it was clean. About twenty minutes later I saw them pack it in.
I continued to make my way north, but the casting got tougher because of the steep cliff at my back. I ended up catching the cliff on a back cast and busted off my fly. Damn, I thought, that was my lucky fly. I figured it’d be a waste of time to try and find it amidst all the rocks so briefly looked on my way back to shore before retying. On my way back out, a sparkle on the bottom caught my eye. Lo and behold, there it was, the fly I had just lost. I tell people my flies always come back to me. This one was no exception.
After about another hour of fruitless casting I was worn out and decided to take some time to appreciate my surroundings. I found plenty of lizards that would quickly scurry across the rocks lining the shore. There was one that was far slower than the others, which I came to realize was because it had the head of another lizard in its mouth. In addition to the cannibal lizard, I saw some American White Pelicans but never got a picture. I hopped out on a rock to make a couple final casts. The view was quite nice.
I made my way back to the car to find that another car had taken the place of the guy and his son’s. Damn, I guess I had stumbled upon a honey hole. I looked down the cliff to find two guys fishing the point. Of all the random dirt roads I could’ve taken, the one I chose led me to this spot. Crazy how things work sometimes.
I admired the view one last time, packed up my stuff, and hit the road. I won’t soon forget the two days I spent fishing Pyramid. As the saying goes, most things in life worth doing aren’t easy. This trip was no exception to that rule. Till we meet again Pyramid Lake, peace.
