PYRAMID LAKE : Large Lahontan Cutthroat Trout Make a Comeback

His expedition journal shows that on Jan. 10, 1844, the explorer John C. Fremont rode over a desert-mountain pass in what is now northern Nevada and was startled to see a vast, blue lake.

Fremont and his 24-man party, who were looking for a river thought to flow from the Rocky Mountains to San Francisco Bay, traveled down the east shore of the lake. They found a rock island that reminded Fremont of the Egyptian pyramids. So he named it Pyramid Lake.

Fremont also found that the lake contained fish. Big fish. In camp, his party feasted on trout, up to three feet long. His party also discovered a large carp-like fish local Indians call Cui-ui (Kwee-wee).

Pyramid Lake, roughly 32 miles long and 14 miles wide, is about 35 miles northeast of Reno on Highway 445. The lake is actually the last remnant of ancient Lake Lahontan, which geologists say once covered much of northern Nevada, more than 8,000 square miles--roughly the size of Lake Erie.

The trout fishery that Fremont found was to last about 100 years. Before dams were built on the Truckee River, the Lahontan cutthroat trout had evolved into one of the largest native trout species in North America. But the Lahontan cutthroat, which over hundreds of centuries evolved in the Pyramid-Truckee and Carson River-Lake Tahoe water systems, virtually disappeared in the late 1930s and early 1940s, when water diversions from the Truckee River to agricultural lands caused a delta to form at the river’s mouth at the lake, blocking upstream spawning runs.

Heavy turn-of-the-century market fishing and the introduction of non-compatible species such as rainbow and lake trout also contributed to the decline of native cutthroat.

In the three decades following the first alteration of the Truckee’s flow, in 1905, Pyramid Lake was one of North America’s great trout fisheries. Clark Gable used to hide out at Pyramid and catch 20-pound cutthroat. So did former President Herbert Hoover. In 1925, a local named John Skimmerhorn caught a 41-pounder, still believed to be the largest cutthroat ever caught, even though his fish was never submitted as a world record. Evidence exists that native Lahontan cutthroat once reached the 60-pound class.

Early non-Indian fishermen at Pyramid called them “salmon trout.”

From roughly 1940 to the early 1950s, deprived of its former inflow volumes of fresh water, Lake Pyramid became virtually troutless. But today, the once fabled Lahontan cutthroat has made quite a comeback. It isn’t the same pure-strain Lahontan that Fremont found, but it is a close hatchery relative.

In the winter months, trollers, spin and fly fishermen from the west converge on the big lake to try their hand at 5- to 10-pound cutthroats.

Says U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service biologist Bob Hallock, who works with the lake’s fishery: “The unique thing about Pyramid is that while it’s not what it once was, it still produces some very big trout. Where else can you have a reasonable expectation of catching a five- to seven-pound trout? I don’t know of any other place like that. I’ve caught 5 to 10 fish over five pounds in one day at Pyramid.”

Hallock and other fly fishermen work the shallows on the lake’s west and south shores in rubber waders. Spin fishermen cast from high shore rocks.

“Some fly fishermen use inner tubes and swim fins and kick out to deeper water, but that scares me,” Hallock said. “Pyramid is a desert lake, and desert storms around here can come out of nowhere. You can be fishing in clear weather, and in a few minutes have thunder and lightning all around you. I’ve heard of winds blowing guys in tubes clear across the lake, and this is a big lake. You can get awfully cold out there.”

Dark wooly worm patterns, fly fisherman Hallock reports, work best during Pyramid’s cold months, when cutthroats are in the shallows.

“Black works best for me consistently, but there are days when purples, dark greens and browns work, too,” he said. “And I’ve even taken trout on whites.”

Two summers ago, Ray Johnson, a noted brown trout fisherman from Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Utah, noticed that the International Game Fish Assn. (IGFA) record book was devoid of a cutthroat trout category.

Johnson decided to create one. Between July 21 and July 30, 1984, fishing with Gus Brennan of Reno, Johnson put six Pyramid cutthroat into the record book, ranging from 9 pounds 2 ounces to 11-9. He caught all the fish trolling, with downriggers, on 2-, 4-, 8-, 12-, 16- and 20-pound test line and carp minnow-patterned homemade lures.

Since then, due in large part to heavier-than-normal Sierra runoff, Pyramid fishing is even better.

Said George Black at Mark Fore and Strike, a Reno tackle shop: “Our annual contest winner this winter was a 16-pound fish. The next two were 15-11 and 15-9. The 15-9 was caught on a fly rod. I know one guy, Jose Silva, who caught a 13-0 fish on four-pound test, but the IGFA turned him down for a record because the scale wasn’t certified.”

The recent success of Pyramid, Black said, is a triumph of management and the politics of water.

“The fishing has gotten better and better over the last several years. The water volume is up, and that’s always a plus, and the Indians who manage the lake have won a couple of key court battles over water rights. Overall, the Indians have done a very good job of managing the resource well.”

Another major reason for the cutthroat comeback is a restricted size and bag limits. Minimum size is 19 inches. And the daily limit is two fish. The Cui-ui, which is on the federal endangered species list, can be taken only by tribal members.

Pyramid Lake lies entirely within the Pyramid Lake Paiute Indian Reservation. For thousands of years, anthropologists say, people have lived along the lake’s shores in well-structured communities, living in caves or rock structures.

Today, the lake’s fishery is owned by the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, which also operates a cutthroat and Cui-ui hatchery at Sutcliffe, a small community on the lake’s west shore. The 12-year-old Dunn-Cui-ui Hatchery produces roughly 2.5-million cutthroat hatchlings a year, 70% of which survive to 8- to 10-inch size and are planted in the lake.

In the hatchery, there is a 1930s picture of Clark Gable, holding up two trout, each about 2 1/2 feet long. In another photo, a small Indian boy stands next to a beached skiff, on which are tied 20 trout, all in the 15- to 20-pound class.

The size of Pyramid Lake’s cutthroats once made Ripley’s Believe it or Not, after four men on July 26, 1935, caught 40 trout, the smallest of which was nine pounds.

Lahontan cutthroat trout are distinguished by a wide, pink side band. Its entire body is spotted and its name derived from two reddish stripes beneath the jaw.

This spring, the hatchery-raised descendants of Pyramid’s original cutthroats must have thought it was like old times. A dam that blocks cutthroat upstream spawning migrations, Derby Dam, about 20 miles upstream on the Truckee River, was partially breached by heavy Sierra runoff in February.

A portion of the earthen part of the dam partially collapsed, and biologists estimate roughly 1,500 cutthroats moved as far as Reno and spawned. Once, a cutthroat could swim all the way from Pyramid to Lake Tahoe.

When Fremont discovered Pyramid Lake, Lahontan cutthroats were found throughout the Carson and Truckee river systems, even in Lake Tahoe. Even today, wild, pure strains of ancient Lahontan cutthroats can be found in a half dozen or so hard-to-find streams on the Sierra’s west slope.

Today, three hydro-power stations on the Truckee near the California-Nevada line also block the one-time unobstructed path of Tahoe-bound cutthroat.

Phil Curri of Reno, standing in hip-deep water near Pyramid’s southwest shore one recent afternoon, was using a long casting rod to hurl a lure 60 to 70 yards out upon the water, lightly chopped by an early afternoon breeze.

“The prime time for these cutthroats is the coldest part of the winter,” he said. “We have a saying up here--the fishing’s best when it’s cold enough to grow icicles on the end of your nose. About this time of year most of the fish go into deep water to keep cool, but sometimes in April or May, you can pick up a stray.”

Almost as he said it, three fly fishermen a few hundred yards south of where Curri was casting let out whoops. A cutthroat splashed at the surface, where it had been suckered by a fly.

“See, a lot of locals quit fishing the lake entirely at the end of February, but the shallow water fishing doesn’t shut off entirely like they think it does. I can catch (and release) 10 or 12 nice fish in a few hours in cold weather here, and I can catch about half that many on a warmer day, like today. And on your day off (Curri is a blackjack dealer), that still beats staying home.”

Even Reno-area residents will argue over what is prime time for Pyramid cutthroats. Many adhere to the “icicles on the nose” theory. But some don’t.

George Black, of Mark Fore and Strike: “That cold-weather theory is a myth. The best periods are during rising or falling water temperatures. When the temperature is rising in February and April and when it’s going down in October and November are the best times.”

The drive from Reno to Pyramid Lake on Nevada 445 takes one quickly out of Reno’s northern suburbs and into desolate high-desert country, where rolling sagelands are surrounded by high buttes and juniper-studded hills.

The first view of the lake comes abruptly, from the top of a pass. Down below, the soft blue lake lies in startling contrast to the brown-tan sagelands. Flood washes from canyons down below travel twisting paths to the lakeshore.

The 750-acre island that Fremont thought looked Egyptian-made is now called Anaho Island, and most of it was declared a National Wildlife Refuge in 1913. Anaho is one of eight nesting colonies of American white pelicans in the western United States and Canada. Double-crested cormorants, California gulls, great blue herons and sometimes Caspian terns also nest on the island.

The entire Pyramid Lake region is lightly populated. Sutcliffe, four miles up the road, has no more than 50 homes. There is a feeling of vast emptiness and solitude to this high-desert country. For the most part, the only sound is the wind. The east shore is roadless still.

You can’t help but wonder at what little change has occurred since that day in 1844 when Fremont passed this way, looking for a river that flowed only in his imagination.