Outdoors with Don Q: A four-day adventure in Eastern Nevada

On May 9 through May 12, six of us were on a fun-filled, four-day, outdoor adventure way over in Eastern Nevada. The six were: Bob “Slick” and Lynda McCulloch and Elaine and I, all of Carson City, plus Sal and Catali Quilici of Dayton.
We went to the Ely area to fish some of the waters in that part of Nevada because five of us (Sal, Catali, Slick, Elaine and I) are entered in the Ormsby Sportsmen’s Association (OSA) annual fishing contest, and we were hoping to catch any of the following fish:
Rainbow trout or brown trout at Illipah Reservoir,
Rainbow trout or brown trout at Cave Lake,
Northern Pike at Comins Lake and
Brook trout at Steptoe Creek.

As a matter of interest, the state record brown trout of 27-pounds, 5-ounces (33 inches in length) came from Cave Lake in 1984; and the state record Northern Pike of 27 pounds (44 inches) came from Comins Lake in 1978.
We were hoping that we might get lucky and catch one of those big trophy fish to enter it in that OSA fishing contest and dazzle everyone.

Wednesday, May 9:
Slick and Lynda in their big pickup and Elaine and I in my little pickup drove to the Quilici’s home in Dayton, early on the morning of May 09, where Sal and Catali were waiting in their vehicle.
From there, the three vehicles convoyed toward Ely, with a stop in Fallon to top off gas tanks, a lunch of great tasting, cheeseburgers at the Owl Café in Eureka and then fishing at Illipah Reservoir, which is 40 miles west of Ely.

For those of you who have never driven from Carson City to Ely, it is about a 300 mile trip (one-way), right across the middle of Nevada on U.S. 50.
In that 300 miles, you cross a total of 11 passes or summits: Sand Springs Pass (4,644’), Drumm Summit (4,600’), New Pass Summit (6,348’), Mt. Airy Summit (6,679’), Austin Summit (7,484’), Bob Scott Summit (7,267’), Hickison Summit (6,546’), Pinto Summit (7,376’), Pancake Summit (6,517), Little Antelope Summit (7,438’) and Robinson Summit (7,607’).

That long drive offers you the opportunity to see some great looking Nevada-type scenery which includes sand mountains, salt flats, the U.S. Navy bombing range, huge open valleys, towering mountains, lots of open spaces, plus the old mining towns of Austin and Eureka.

In addition, the drive also offers you the chance to see critters, such as pronghorn antelope, mule deer, Rocky Mt. elk, coyotes, wild horses, etc. On this trip, all we saw were antelope, wild horses, range cattle, and sheep.
We stopped for several hours at Illipah Reservoir to try our luck for rainbow and brown trout. We caught a number of rainbows, but nothing spectacular.

The most interesting thing was that the five of us had made a bet on who would catch the first fish.
Elaine not only caught the first fish and won, but she caught the first three before any of the rest of us could score.

She claimed that she spit on her hook, and after she had caught that third fish, the rest of us were all busy spitting on our hooks…..Honest!

After we finished fishing, we drove to the Bristlecone Motel in Ely, where we checked in and then had a fun-filled, late afternoon cocktail party with munchies and drinks in the patio area in front of our rooms.

Thursday, May 10:
We got up early the next morning, grabbed a quick cup of coffee and then took the 66 mile drive from Ely to Great Basin National Park.
That park is Nevada’s only National Park and it contains Mt. Wheeler (Nevada second highest mountain at 13,063 feet), plus Lehman Caves.
Along the way to the park, we saw very little traffic, awesome scenery, lots of antelope and a “forest” of brand new, wind turbines in Spring Valley.

At Great Basin, we visited the Visitor’s Center, took the 12-mile (8 percent grade) Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive, with its spectacular views, drove to the Lehman Caves Visitors Center, enjoyed a leisurely lunch in the picnic area and watched a small herd of deer walk through our area, and then took the 90 minute Grand Palace Tour of the awe-inspiring Lehman Caves.

When the tour was over, we drove back to Comins Lake, got skunked fishing and then drove back to the motel, where we had another fun-filled, late afternoon cocktail party with munchies and drinks in the patio area.

Friday, May 11:
We got up early again, grabbed a quick cup of coffee and then drove the short distance (about 7 miles) to Comins Lake, which contains Northern Pike, and they can be very impressive in size.
There was a whole lot of spincasting of lures by all of us, but the action was slow, very slow. In the several hours that we fished there, we caught a grand total of only two pike, one by Sal (18 inches) and one by me (21 inches).
Mine was caught while casting a No. 2, red/white, TOR-P-DO No. 2 lure, and it is my entry in the Northern Pike Category in the OSA contest.

Also, while at Comins, I had the chance to, once again, meet and talk to Mike Zahradka, who is the Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) wildlife management area supervisor for the Eastern Complex.
We left Comins about 10:30 a.m. and drove to Cave Lake.
At the lake, we caught lots of small, planter-sized rainbow trout, but again nothing spectacular in size. The trout were all caught with nightcrawlers.

After eating lunch, we drove to our next goal: Brook trout in Steptoe Creek.
That small creek is heavily overgrown with brush, willows, sagebrush and wild roses, and it was like trying to fish in a rain forest jungle.
Catali managed to find a tiny open area, dropped a worm into a small pool and bam: She caught an 11.5-inch Brookie. We took photos of the small fish and she has her entry in the All Other Trout category in the OSA contest.

From Steptoe Creek, we drove the remainder of the distance on the 33-mile Success Loop, hoping to see and photograph deer and elk. We did not see any deer, elk or other vehicles, the scenery was spectacular and the road was bone-dry and very, very dusty.
We returned to the Bristlecone Motel, where we had another fun-filled, late afternoon cocktail party, before eating at a nearby Mexican restaurant.

Saturday, May 12:
On the long drive back home to Carson City and Dayton, we stopped a number of times so Elaine could take pictures (she took about 200 for the entire trip, I know because I had to look at and edit all 200 of them).
Her four days of photos included: The Loneliest Highway in America, snow capped mountain ranges, Stoke’s Castle in Austin, a trophy buck Pronghorn Antelope standing next to the highway, Catali with her Brook trout, Illipah Reservoir, Illipah Reservoir, Comins Lake, Steptoe Creek, Cave Lake, a Mallard Duck at Cave Lake, and the “Shoe Tree” just out of Middlegate. Heck, she even took a photo of me sitting in my folding chair, while fishing.
It was a fun-filled, four-day trip and we are planning to return in the late-summer to try to catch one of those darn elusive Northern Pike at Comins.

Bet Your Favorite Pigeon
Bet your favorite pigeon that he can’t tell you what impressed us the most on this year’s adventure to Eastern Nevada.
If he grins and says, “Heck, that’s easy. It was the almost total lack of snow at the 10,500’ elevation level on the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive, where there should normally be vast, deep snow fields at this time of the year,” he could have been there in past years when the winters had been fierce.

— Don Quilici is the Outdoor editor for Carson Now and www.SouthTahoeNow.com. He can be reached at donquilici@hotmail.com.