Heading to Reno over memorial weekend and was thinking about hitting Pyramid Lake for some monster Lahontan Cutt throat trout. Its kinda
i actually grew up 50 miles from that lake and never fished it. Anyone have any experience on that lake?
I hear the wind can be an issue, similar to Mead. Reading up on it it seems that spoons seem to be the lure of choice. I have a couple of AC Plugs i am gonna try also. Probably be trolling for the most part.
Any feedback is appreciated!
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Heya Billy,
I have never fished up there so I cannot help you out. However, I'd love to hear abbout your trip. If things go right I may head up there sometime this summer.
Later,
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Check with MMDon on the Idaho board.
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I used to fish Pyramid Lake every weekend (during trout season) for three years when I lived up in Reno. Great Lake!. There are three main methods of catching trout on pyramid lake:
1.) Trolling 2.) Vertical Jigging 3.) Fly Fishing
I am more experience in the first two.
1.) With trolling I usually ran downriggers and long line behind the boat. With downriggers, you don't have to run your line more then 10-15 feet behind the boat. This also allows you run two lures per rod on one downrigger. Attached a second release to your downrigger line and have a 6-8 ft line with a swivel on one end and lure on the other above the second release. You can run the two releases 10 ft apart and cover more depth. Lures that typically are used on pyramid on Quickfish and spoons. Dark colors work the best from my experience, dark green, blue, red and black. I was hoping to make a trip up there this year and try large swim baits like AC plugs, bet you can get one of those 20+lb hit it. You can troll most of the lake but I also preferred at the Nets location and North of Warrior Point up to Wizards Cove.
2.) Vertical jigging is a blast when you find underwater hot water springs. Using your fishfinder when the screen is peppered with fish you found it. The fish on the screen is mainly Chub, the bait fish of the lake. But the trout aren't too far away. The best jigs are home made and easy to make. A football head jig 3/4 oz to 1 oz with blue, purple or black feathers 3-4 inches long. Drop it to the bottom and start bouncing it off the bottom, you need to play around with speed. Sometimes hard jerking action works, sometimes very slow. The best locations, like mentioned, is the where hot water springs are located. There are four locations I know of exactly. One is on the northwest side of the pyramid, about 80' down, second is south of nets about in about 40' of water, third is between Thunderbolt Bay and wizards Cove about 30' deep and fourth is at the needles about 70' deep. Send me a PM if you want exact locations, I can point them out on a map.
The wind is always the problem, unlike Lake Mead, if the wind blows there is not really a place to hide from it . If you got anymore questions let me know.
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It's been a few years but there is a store there where you get your reservation permit. On the wall they have photos of all the fish caught recently. They break it out into boats and shore fishing and take down old ones every few weeks so it is somewhat current. It is pretty impressive. I have done well with spoons there but darn if I can remember the colors. I am thinking I used a red and white kamlooper in nickel. Also used some white jigs. All of my fishing has been from shore.
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Great info guys and Flygoddess thanks for pointing me to MMDon, he gave me a link to a forum that has a lot of info on Pyramid. Looks like i have all the insight i need now just gotta see if I can actually catch anything!
Should be a wild weekend of fishing, gonna spend a full day on Pyramid and a day or two fishing for LMB in Mason Valley wildlife refuge. There is a spot in there that just keeps producing 7+lb bucket mouths and it gets very little fishing pressure. Wish me luck!
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