Yesterday was a good day! My budddy Blake of Pisces Outdoors invited me and another buddy out for the opening day of fishing at Pyramid Lake in Nevada (Northeast of Reno a bit, near the Black Rock Desert, where Burning Man takes place). Blake makes and sells fishing lures, he also recently obtained his fishing guide license and can now bring clients out for fishing adventures on his bad-ass boat.
The day started out rough. The waves were big and scary. But again, Blake's boat is bad-ass and handled the waves with no problems. I, however, ended up seasick and the first couple of hours of fishing were rough for me. Eventually, the awful feeling went away and I was having a blast! Many fish were caught, they were all Lahontan Cutthroat Trout. All of them were big, one was a very large one, probably about 12 pounds.
Here's one that I caught:
Here's Blake's "winner" of the day. We were quick to release the fish so they could live to be caught another day. This meant we did not have time to weigh the fish, but again, the three of us experienced fishermen agreed, about 12 pounds for this one. Yes, that's a GoPro in the shot. Blake has a YouTube channel and I was also helping a bit with video camera work. Here's Blake's channel: Pisces Outdoors on YouTube The video will be released soon...
This is Blake's boat, at the boat launch. We did not start at sunrise because the wind was supposed to die down mid-day, which means the waves should have started to lay down a bit at launch time.
NOPE! The wind and waves did not mellow out for another couple hours. And again, I ended up getting seasick...
Our buddy Paul and his dog Bubba were both BEASTS on this trip. Bubba handled the rough water like a champ, he is a very experienced dog when it comes to fishing adventures. Paul was incredible when it came to gearing up the rods with tackle and landing the most fish. He's not very patient and would change the lures out often with new ones. But this was a great technique because he was quickly able to figure out what was working and again, we caught tons of fish!
Here's a few more happy fishermen photos:
And here's a look at some of the lures we were using. Blake makes and sells the "spoons". Plugs also worked for us, as well as a few other types. Many many fish were caught, we were out there almost all day, so many types of lures were used. On "opening day" the fish haven't seen lures for a few months so they aren't cautious and bite a lot. So much fun!
We had one double hook-up, when two fish bite at the same time (different rods and lures). It's always fun even though it creates a bit of chaos on the boat. I actually caught that fish Blake is holding on the right... But as the photographer on the boat, it was my duty to get the photo, lol.
Almost all of the fish were released. We did keep a couple and I now have half of one fish in my freezer, the other half is in the refrigerator and is going to be my dinner tonight, woohoo! Pyramid Lake has very strict rules about what size fish you can keep, and how many. The lake is on on an Indian Reservation and the Paiute Tribe does an incredible job with managing the fish population there. It's not that uncommon for fishermen to land a 20 pound trout there. And there are SO MANY fish in that lake, you are really doing something wrong if you walk away empty handed.
We had to stop for a minute along the shore, in order to let Bubba the dog go pee. While there, I ended up with this cool shoreline landscape photo. I was happy with it and it is now available to order as prints on my website: "Fall Colors at Pyramid Lake".
I also got Blake a nice photo of his boat. I always make sure to get some good photos for his website, that way I get invited back out again!
Thanks for looking and I hope you all had a great weekend too. FISH ON!
Scott Thompson
Scott Shots Photography
www.ScottShotsPhoto.com
