Nevada's Lake of the Mammoth Lahontan Cutthroat Trout

Standing on a 4-foot ladder with waves lapping at the soles of my boots, I am surrounded by a world of gray. Gray sky, gray hills with gray rocks and gray brush, gray water over a gray bottom ... even my waders and gloves are shades of gray. The fluorescent orange dot floating on the water’s surface 50 feet from my perch glows in this otherwise monochromatic environment, a spark of bright color that draws my eyes and forbids them to look elsewhere. For nearly two hours it has ridden the chop, always drifting to the right, keeping my hope afloat with it.

Then it disappears, pulled into the gray. For a heartbeat I feel like something very important to me has suddenly gone missing. When I raise the rod to set the hook, the world immediately turns vibrant. The orange bobber is nowhere to be seen, but in its place is jade fly line slicing the water, which has now become blue-green under a brightening sky. The rod thumps, and I study its arc that towers over me, noticing the distant hills have taken on an almost pastel shade of purple capped by stark white snow. Scattered rays of sunlight spill onto the nearby shoreline, giving the bank a yellowish hue.

This is at once a beautiful place. A 12-pound trout has a way of changing an angler’s perspective. After several minutes of tugging and head-shaking that tires my arm and shoulder, I turn the fish toward the shallows and into my guide’s waiting net. The trout, a giant cutthroat, is the perfect reflection of its surroundings. Its green-gray back blends into pale pinks, purples, oranges and yellows along its sides, flanks and gill plates. My guide removes the fly, which seems improbably tiny, from the cutthroat’s cavernous mouth, and I return the fish to the lake. The trout is the largest I have ever seen landed, but it is still early.




LAHONTAN HISTORY

The high desert northeast of Reno, Nev., is not a place most anglers would think of visiting for trophy trout. Yet just 40 miles from the casinos and flashing lights lies Pyramid Lake, home to the Lahontan cutthroat, a strain that reaches gigantic proportions. Fish approaching 20 pounds are not uncommon; during the prime times of late winter and into spring, several are caught every week from the lake. The world-record Lahontan cutthroat, which weighed 41 pounds, came from Pyramid in 1925, and a 31-pounder was caught in the lake in 2023.

Pyramid Lake, which gets its name from a large rock island resembling the iconic Egyptian structures, is the last remaining portion of Lake Lahontan, an inland sea that covered much of western Nevada during the Pleistocene Epoch. The Truckee River, which flows from California’s Lake Tahoe, feeds Pyramid and ends there. Roughly 30 miles long and covering 112,000 acres, the entire body of water is located within the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe Reservation. The Paiute people have long been inhabitants of the area around the lake, their ancestral fishing ground for trout and other species. Much of the lake is open to public fishing with a tribal permit.

Although the fishery thrives today thanks to the efforts of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and conservation-minded anglers, the history of the Lahontan cutthroat is not pretty. The fish evolved in Lake Lahontan and was once found throughout the Truckee River drainage, but water diversion for irrigation beginning in the early 1900s led to its eventual extinction in Pyramid Lake. Due to reduced inflow, trout were no longer able to swim up the Truckee to spawn, and the Lahontan cutthroat was gone from the lake and its tributaries by 1939.

In the 1970s, the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe began efforts to reintroduce the Lahontan cutthroat to the lake. Obtaining brood stock from a healthy population that remained in Summit Lake, about 100 miles northeast of Pyramid Lake, the tribe opened a hatchery on the western shore of its home waters. It later expanded the operations to include five facilities, and today the tribe’s Pyramid Lake Fisheries produces between 600,000 and 1 million young Summit strain trout, which are released into the lake and the lower Truckee River.

An unlikely event in 1979 also helped the Lahontan cutthroat make its comeback, when Dr. Robert Behnke of Colorado State University discovered a population of the trout in a small stream on Pilot Peak near the Nevada-Utah border. Researchers later confirmed through DNA testing that the Pilot Peak trout were the same variety that lived in Pyramid Lake and were introduced to the stream in the early 20th century.

The USFWS established brood stock from the Pilot Peak Lahontan cutthroats at its Lahontan National Fish Hatchery in Gardnerville, Nev., and reintroduced them to Pyramid Lake in 2006. The program continues, with the hatchery stocking about 500,000 Pilot Peak Lahontan cutthroats each year into high-priority conservation waters, including Pyramid Lake. The adipose fins of the Pilot Peak fish are clipped at the hatchery, distinguishing them from the Summit strain.

Although consensus is the Pilot Peak strain attains slightly larger sizes than the Summit strain, both reach gigantic proportions thanks to the prolific forage in Pyramid Lake. The lake is home to untold numbers of Tui chubs, which can grow to more than a foot long and have been a main prey of the Lahontan cutthroat since the Pleistocene days. Pyramid also harbors the endangered cui-ui sucker and the Tahoe sucker, two more high-value food items.

BOBBERS AND LADDERS

Fishing from a ladder is the classic technique on Pyramid Lake, and guides Cole Hildahl and Cade Schwender from Pyramid Fly Co. have them lined up just off the shore for us when we arrive at dawn. I am fishing with Max Inchausti, Rachelle Schrute and John Snow—all of us experienced fly anglers but none of us with any time on Pyramid before. As we pull on waders and add layers against the 35-degree morning, Cole and Cade explain the technique.

“It’s basically bobber fishing,” says Cole. “Cast as far as you can, and let it sit. When the bobber goes down, set the hook.”

He hands me a rod, a two-handed 8-weight, and I examine the rig—a beadhead chironomid pattern suspended about 6 feet beneath a float having the diameter of a penny. The fly looks to be about a size 14, and I’m surprised we’re not throwing larger stuff for the behemoths I’ve been hearing about. I learn later that there is a streamer bite on the lake, usually during the first hour of light, but even then the flies are relatively small leech patterns. These Lahontan cutthroats may be oversized, but they’re still trout, and trout readily eat what they are used to seeing in the water. Here, it’s chironomids.

There are, of course, some nuances to the tactic, but I’ll learn those later. It’s time to get flies in the water. One ladder seems as good as the others, and I take a position next to John so I can heckle my friend about his skill and life choices. Our ladders are set in about 3 feet of water, 15 or 20 feet apart.

Having cast a two-handed rod on only a few occasions before, it takes me several tries to get the timing and motion down. Cole stands in the water between our ladders, giving suggestions. I let the line’s shooting head do the work, and soon I’m throwing 40, 50, 60 feet of line into the lake. It’s much like an exaggerated roll cast, but since there is little current, most of the line is directly in front of me. I quickly learn that forming a big loop adds distance to the cast, and I can see the advantage in added height the ladder provides. It also helps me stay warmer since I’m not waist-deep in frigid water.

“Fifty or 60 feet is usually far enough,” Cole notes. “The water is 10 to 15 feet deep out there, and that’s where the fish like to cruise. They move along close to the bottom and come up to eat the fly. They’ll grab it and go right back down again, so when one eats, you’ll see it.”

He goes on to explain that Pyramid is basically a big bowl, and current is produced by the wind pushing water from one side of the lake to the other. When I notice that, he tells me to cast up-current to allow my fly a natural drift. The coaching session over for now, he returns to the shoreline behind John and me to get warm.

AT ANY TIME

“Bobber down!”

I can’t tell if it’s Cole or Cade who yells the heads-up from shore, but my bobber is still afloat while John’s rod is bent. We’ve been fishing for less than 30 minutes, and I’m excited that one of us has already gotten a take. When Cole nets the fish I stow my rod on my ladder and climb down to have a closer look. The trout is long and thick, with big fins and a powerful, black-spotted yellow tail. There is just a small bump where its adipose fin used to be—the mark of a Pilot Peak fish.

As cool as it is to marvel over John’s fish, I really want one of my own, and I ascend my ladder for another session of bobber watching. Not much later, Max, the last ladder at the left end of our line, hooks up. I take my eyes off my bobber just long enough to glance at his first Lahontan cutthroat, which isn’t as big as John’s trout but still well over 5 pounds. Rachelle is up next, landing a red-sided Summit strain, and almost simultaneously, John has on another fish. The action is happening all around me, but I don’t seem to be in the zone.

“These fish will cruise through in groups,” says Cade, keeping my spirits up. “A lot of times we’ll have two or three on at the same time. It’ll be chaos, and then it’ll settle down again. You never know when they’re going to come through. Just keep your bobber in the water.”

An hour later my bobber is still in the water. I’ve made only six or eight casts during that time; the current has all but disappeared and the drifts are long. I begin to notice how gray the landscape appears, start thinking about maybe going to the bank for more coffee, and then the biggest trout of my life eats my fly.

After the fish swims away, I take a few minutes to look around and consider what just happened. Drift after drift for two hours the bobber was there ... and then it was gone. It’s fact that a big bite can happen at any time on Pyramid.

“Never know when one is going to come through,” I repeat back to Cade as I take my position on the ladder again. He shoots me a big grin. Now we’re having fun.

My quip is almost a prediction, as less than 30 minutes later I get another hit. This time it’s my turn to double up with Rachelle, and we get our two fish in the nets not 30 seconds apart. Hers is a Summit, mine a Pilot Peak. Then Max and I double, his fish almost twice the size of the one I land. John picks up a couple more, and then we break for lunch. We’ve all caught trout in the 10-pound range or better, each fish fooled by the chironomid patterns tied by the guides. Things slow for me in the afternoon, but I finish the day with a Summit having bright pink sides and a head pointed like a spear—a Pyramid predator to be sure.

We’re at it again in the morning, casting as the sun rises over the lake. John has a commitment and can’t join us, and so naturally I take his ladder since it was so hot yesterday. This morning is different, though. The lake is calm, and no one is seeing any action. It’s a good time to work on casting, and I try a couple different rods to see if I can get more distance, always remembering that the fish can suddenly show up.

And just like yesterday, they do. The wind picks up in the afternoon, creating a strange current that pulls our bobber and flies away from shore. By shaking out line and mending, I’m able to turn a 50-foot cast into a 70- or 80-foot drift. Fish take the fly with so much commitment that I’m able to hook them at that distance, too, though honestly I think most are hooking themselves. I land four or five in a couple hours and don’t think the afternoon can get much better until I see Max tight to a fish that’s taking line.

This looks like a fish on another level. A few of the ones I fought took a bit of line, but none of them made a run like this trout. Max hangs on and stays patient, slowly tiring the fish by working angles, and finally the monster is at his ladder. When the net slides under the fish and we see it barely fits inside the frame, we celebrate. Cole estimates it at well over 15 pounds and possibly pushing 17. A true monster Lahontan cutthroat. Never know when one is going to come through on Pyramid Lake.

FISHING FOLDERS

• Benchmade’s Adira and Mini Adira are right at home on the water.

When Benchmade launched its Water line of knives last year, the company included models that can cover just about any situation an angler faces. There are two sizes of filet knife, of course, and a pair of fixed-blade designs that serve well on a boat or strapped to a pack when hiking in to a hidden hot spot.

However, the two folders in the Water line—called the Adira and Mini Adira—may be the most convenient for everyday carry and fishing.

Both are built with Benchmade’s Axis Lock mechanism that utilizes stainless steel springs for easy opening and secure deployment. Benchmade uses CPM-MagnaCut stainless steel for the knives’ drop-point blades for excellent corrosion resistance and edge retention. In addition, their Grivory handles are tough and ergonomic. The Adira has a 3.6-inch blade, while the Mini Adira has a 3-inch blade. Each is tailored for a lifetime of use on the water. ($250, Adira; $230, Mini Adira; benchmade.com)

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• This article was featured in the February 2025 issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe.

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