High Sierra Trout
Finally- Success at Pyramid
I picked up Matt at 4:15 Saturday morning and by 4:30 we had picked up Rich and were on our way to Pyramid Lake. Matt had been to the lake earlier in the week and had caught tons of fish on nymphs from some rocks on the shore of the lake, no ladder! We got to the lake at about 5:15 and staked out our spot on the tufa outcrop. Some guys were on the outcrop next to us and one of them had a fish on when we arrived, we took this to be a good sign. I rigged up with a black bugger and a green Mahalo nymph dropper, on my third cast I caught a nice cutt. Rich nailed one on his first cast, and it was on from there. There were trout rising and boiling all over the place and we caught many fish before the sun came up.
Smallest fish of the day
After the sun came up I switched to fishing two nymphs under an indicator and continued to catch fish. As the day grew warmer the action dropped off, but a few fish were still being caught. One fish I caught took me into the backing on a long, blistering run. This was the biggest fish of the day, 8-10 lbs, but a camera malfunction prevented us from getting a photo. This was the kind of day that I’ve been paying my dues for the last couple of years,
Average sized fish
The rocks we were on were next to the boat ramp, but the constant stream of boats launching into the lake didn’t seem to bother the fish any. There were tons of anglers along the shore and in boats and everybody seemed to be catching fish, though shore anglers appeared to have more success.
The Saturday crowd
The dude in the pontoon boat in the photo above hooked a giant fish that took him more than ten minutes to bring in. He finally got it to the boat but couldn’t get it close enough to net, he was horsing it pretty good when his rod snapped in half and the fish got away. When the sun got to be overhead around noon we could see lots of fish cruising along the drop off ledge. Sometimes schools of 20 fish or more would pass by, but they were very picky. We each got a few of these cruisers, including a fatty caught by Rich.
Nice one Rich!
My last fish was a small female that ate a size 14 hot pink Copper John, we caught fish on lots of different flies; Mahalo nymphs, red Copper Johns, buggers and I even got one on an orange sherbert Burk’s Bottom Roller. We quit at about 1 so Matt and I could get back to town in time for a quick nap before work. We didn’t get many pictures because I dropped my camera into the water- again! This time I didn’t realize I had dropped it until about 20 minutes after it happened. It took me another 10 minutes to find it so I doubt it will be OK this time. I need to get a waterproof camera!
Monday, April 14, 2008
