Outdoors with Don Q: A very weird experience at Pyramid Lake
Submitted by editor on Wed, 04/01/2015 - 8:16am
Elaine and I just returned from a fishing trip to Pyramid Lake where we had a very weird experience.
When we fish at Pyramid, we like to stand in the water in our chest waders and spincast with various colored lures, while trying to catch one of its monster-sized Lahontan Cutthroat Trout.
Our favorite fishing location is on the northwest side of the lake where we can cast our lures, let them sink to the bottom and then slowly retrieve them, in a slow jerking motion along the sandy bottom.
If we get a strike, it usually falls into one of two categories: A trout will hit as soon as the lure enters the water or a trout will follow the lure to just in front of us before striking.
Our best-ever day, fishing in this manner, was a Spring day when we caught and released a total of 50 trout, before quitting. Not too shabby.
November and March are considered the two best months to fish for trout at Pyramid, so we decided to fish there in the middle of last week.
We do not like to fish on weekends (Fri-Sat-Sun) because of too many weekend fishermen cause crowded conditions anywhere you go. Last Wednesday, we packed a lunch, loaded all of our fishing gear into the little red pickup and headed for our favorite location at Pyramid, a two-hour drive from Carson City.
Once at our fishing spot, we put on our chest waders, wader boots and fishing vests, rigged up our poles with favorite lures (mine is an orange spoon with black dots and Elaine's is a red/white stripped spoon), waded into the water to where we were thigh-deep and began casting.
It was a gorgeous day: No wind, no clouds, warm and best of all, there were no other fishermen anywhere close to us. Yahoo! We had it all to ourselves.
Elaine caught the first fish of the day, it darted here and there, splashing in and out of the water, while being reeled in slowly.
The Cutthroat measured a respectable 21 inches in length and Elaine carefully released it back into the water to swim away to live another day.
Then, it happened. All of a sudden, there were trout all around the two of us. Dozens of them. In addition to being big in size, they were acting strange. Very strange.
The larger trout were darting toward us and then swimming away, all the time circling closer and closer to the two of us standing in the water.
I said to Elaine, "What the heck is going on with the fish?"
Elaine replied, "I don't know, but they act like they are trying to be aggressive and I'm getting a little scared."
Suddenly, one of the larger fish swam up to me, bit my waders on the left leg; and while biting, it was shaking its head back and forth, like it was trying to tear a hole in my waders.
Then another was biting on my other leg, and then another and then another.
I shouted to Elaine, "Get out of the water, these fish are attacking us."
She quickly backed out of the water, while I began backing toward shore and hitting at the fish with my fishing pole, while they were trying to bite.
I finally reached the shore, but both legs on my chest waders were ripped and torn at many locations where there were jagged bite holes in the fabric.
As we stood at the edge of the water, the fish were obviously still agitated, darting toward us, darting away from us, leaping into the air and circling in bigger and bigger schools of larger and larger trout.
Wow! There was no way that we were going back out into that water!
That was down-right scary, and you can bet the ranch that the next time we go fishing in our chest waders at Pyramid Lake, we will be very cautious and fish from shore rather than out in the water.
You can also bet the ranch that by the time you have read this far into the story, you will realize you have been taken in by a jokester (AKA Don Q).
Check today's date.
It is April 1.
It is April Fool's Day and I got you!
— Don Quilici is the Outdoor editor for Carson Now. Don's wife, Elaine, is the Outdoor editor. They can be reached at donquilici@hotmail.com
