Dave Hamel with a massive 34", 20lb-class Lahontan Cutthroat Trout, February 2013
Preface: I never
do this but these two articles (scroll down) were too good to pass up and they won’t be easy
to find on the internet for long. They
were in the RGJ and written by Jeff DeLong and Mary Peacock to whom I give full credit. I just had to put them up again because not
much is written about the plight of the mighty Lahontan Cutthroat Trout and I
found the info in the articles worth sharing. So in other words, I'm doing this for posterity's sake. Over the past 12 years I’ve spent a good amount of time fishing and researching Pyramid Lake combing through books,
magazines, blogs and internet articles in an attempt to better understand this
unique desert fishery. I’ve visited
Summit Lake, NV and Independence Lake, CA, the last two bastions for
self-sustaining lacustrine populations of these apex predators, have spoke with
several fisheries biologists and have visited the
Lahontan National FishHatchery in Gardnerville to see and inquire about the Pilot Peak Strain first hand.
Now then,
I’ve been theorizing for the past few years that the seldom heard of Pilot Peak strain,
which even fewer people knew was introduce into Pyramid Lake back in 2007
(~13,000 juveniles per the biologist I spoke to), was the culprit which
explained the ever increasing size of fish showing up in the creel in recent years. I’ve kept loose
tabs on fish caught out of the lake since 2000, and whereas for the next 10
years that followed, 14-15lbs seems to be a glass ceiling for rod and reel anglers (per
the Tribe’s “creel census”) and the Sutcliff Hatchery (per the brooder spawning records
that the Tribe used to publish), starting about 3 or 4 years ago fish started
showing up that mysteriously broke (and even shattered) that ceiling. In particular, several 15+ pounders showed up
in 2009 and 2010 timeframe, fish up to 17lbs or better were reported in 2011, in early 2012 they were
pushing the low 20's and by the end of 2012 and into this year, there are reports that I'm aware of about three 23-24lb
class fish (amongst others slightly smaller). You can even go to the
Crosby Lodge website, its as if 10 pounders don't even't turn heads anymore and 15-18 pounders are a weekly occurrence (for everyone but me, I can't break 10). Are they going to have to start a 20lb club? There is no denying that in recent years, the big boys seem to be
coming back and the maximum size for mature fish had grown by an astonishing 8-10lbs (60-70%) . How could this happen if food sources, alkalinity, spawning habitat and fishing pressure remained relatively static during the same period?
The good
news is that it was happening, and there is speculation by some that fish approaching 30lbs
could be a reality in the not too distant future....i tend to agree. Will they grow to their historic gargantuan
proportions of 60lbs or more, who’s to say, but biologists believe the recent slough of 20 pound pilot peakers are only 1/3 through their natural lifecycle. Even still, they'll have some challenges given whats been done to the Truckee River (and the water rights contained therein) over the past century. The fish have many things going against them
these days than was the case before 1905 from the lake level being 100 feet lower than it was 100 years ago,
thereby increasing the alkalinity and decreasing the life expectancy of these
fish, to the inability of brooders to navigate the Truckee/Pyramid delta and Derby Dam to spawn naturally, to
antiquated fishing rules that allow the biggest fish to be culled rather than
released to propagate their genes. On
top of this, the Pilot Peak fish has been living in a small desert creek for
the past 60 plus years, and I've read that there is concern that some
natural selection may have
occurred over that time frame that may have deselected certain traits that
allowed these fish to grow to be 60 pound apex predators in a tui chub-rich
lacustrine environment in exchange for the traits of stealth, agility, wariness and
perseverance needed to survive in the harsh environment of a small desert creek
half way up Pilot Peak on the Nevada and Utah border. Only time will tell. Anyhow, now that it seems to be widely accepted that the Pilot Peak strain is
the cause for all the hub-bub, it’s a good thing I’m not the type of person who
says “I told you so”. Now for the articles:
Giant cutthroats show
efforts to restore native fish to Pyramid Lake working
By Jeff DeLong
It’s been
three months, and Ed Smith still gets worked up talking about it.
After
all, the 72-year-old Sparks resident has been fly fishing for Pyramid Lake’s
cutthroat trout for more than 30 years. He’s caught plenty of fish. Plenty of
big ones.
“You want
to catch a 10-pound fish or over. That’s what we look for,” said Smith, who
generally throws a line into the lake five days a week.
So
imagine Smith’s surprise on Nov. 21 when he pulled a struggling 24-pounder out
of the water, an experience he said came with a thrill that still sometimes
wakes him at night.
“Excitement
is an understatement,” Smith said. “It was a giant fish. It would barely fit in
the net.”
Smith’s
not the only one excited. That fish might have been the biggest, but cutthroats
in the 20-pound range are now “coming in pretty regularly” as efforts to
restore native fish to Pyramid Lake appear to be paying off big-time, said Lisa
Heki, complex manager of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Lahontan National
Fish Hatchery.
It’s
still early to say for sure, but the size of the so-called “Pilot Peak”
cutthroat being caught in Pyramid Lake over the past year points to a healthy
fish population that might, in a few years, be producing fish like the 41-pound
world record fish landed in 1925 by Paiute Johnny Skimmerhorn.
“We’ve
turned a corner,” Heki said. “Based on what we’re learning, there’s a strong
indication they’re going to provide a great fishery, a fishery reminiscent of
that 1930s fishing experience.”
A troubled fish
If that’s
true, it would be a profound reversal.
Nevada’s
state fish, Lahontan cutthroats (also known as Pilot Peak cutthroats) once
thrived in all the major rivers and lakes on the eastern side of the Sierra,
including Pyramid Lake, Lake Tahoe and the Truckee River. The fish were famous
for their size and taste, with explorer John Fremont declaring in 1845 that
“their flavor was excellent — superior, in fact, to that of any fish I have
ever known.”
Lahontan
cutthroats were fished extensively from Tahoe and Pyramid. Rail cars full of
the fish were sent to mining camps and to San Francisco as people harvested a
succulent resource that one newspaper reported in 1881 was “inexhaustible." That was not the case.
Overfishing,
destruction of spawning habitat and the introduction of non-native game fish —
particularly the Mackinaw — combined to collapse the cutthroat population in
Lake Tahoe, with the fish gone from the lake by 1939.
By 1944,
cutthroats disappeared from Pyramid Lake as well, with the death knell for that
lake’s population largely linked to the 1905 construction of Derby Dam about 30
miles upstream. The dam diverted much of the Truckee River’s previous flow into
Pyramid Lake into the Carson River for irrigation use, destroyed spawning
habitat and blocked fish passage.
Lahontan
cutthroats were listed as an endangered species in 1970 and reclassified to
threatened five years later, a status change designed to provide greater
flexibility for restoration efforts.
In 1974, the
Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe established a new cutthroat fishery. To this day, the
tribe releases fish raised at its Sutcliffe hatchery into the lake, but these
fish come from stocks originating outside the Truckee River Basin, a step taken
because experts assumed Pyramid’s original cutthroats were gone for good.
Pilot Peak discovery
That
assumption came into question in the late 1970s when a taxonomist named Bob
Behnke collected trout from a small stream in the Pilot Mountains on the
Nevada-Utah border. Based on their physical characteristics, Behnke came to the
conclusion those fish were likely related to the original Pyramid Lake stock.
Decades
later, that conclusion would be confirmed through DNA testing.
“This
strain definitely represents the original Pyramid Lake legacy,” Heki said.
Based
largely on Behnke’s early conclusions — in a move later supported by the DNA
tests — the Fish and Wildlife Service began raising the Pilot Peak strain of
cutthroats at its Lahontan hatchery in Gardnerville in 1995. The first of those
fish were released into Pyramid Lake in 2006, joining those already planted
there by the tribe.
It was
late on a breezy afternoon on Jan. 21, 2012 when Matt Ceccarelli — having
fished unsuccessfully throughout the day at two locations — threw his line into
the water near the marina at Sutcliffe. After his third or fourth cast,
Ceccarelli recalls, he hooked a fish that was a big surprise when he finally
got it ashore. It was the first confirmed catch of an adult Pilot Peak
cutthroat, and the fish weighed 19.8 pounds.
“When we
pulled that fish in, it was amazing,” Ceccarelli said. “I had no idea fish were
getting that big out there.”
In
October 2012, Ernie Gulley landed a female Pilot Peak cutthroat that weighed 17
pounds. The following month, Ed Smith caught that whopping 24-pounder, an
experience he describes as “just beyond belief.”
Ed Smith caught this 36", 24lb Pilot Peak strain Lahontan Cutthroat in November or 2012. It was stocked in 2007
They keep
on coming. At Crosby’s Lodge in Sutcliffe, there are 19 photos posted on the
wall of big cutthroats caught during the lackluster fishing season of 2011-12.
More than 80 photos of big cutthroats are posted for the current season, and
many of them are of the Pilot Peak variety, said owner Fred Crosby.
“It’s
quite the buzz,” Crosby said of a situation that is gaining increasing
attention by fishing magazines and blogs around the country. Crosby said he
thinks a 30-pound Pilot Peak cutthroat will likely be landed within two or
three years, and he agrees the long-term prospects for the Pyramid Lake fishery
appear very promising.
“It would
sure be nice to get those fish back,” Crosby said. “It’s a shame we lost them
in the first place.”
Positive effects
Tribal
officials, who agreed to allow U.S. Fish and Wildlife to begin stocking the
fish into Pyramid Lake in 2006, concur.
“Now
they’re getting big, so we’re pretty happy about it,” said Albert John,
fisheries director for the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe. The Pilot Peak strain,
John said, is “the closest there is” to the lake’s original cutthroats.
“This is
really what it’s all about,” agreed tribal planner Scott Carey. The seeming
success of the Pilot Peak cutthroat introduction, Carey said, bodes well not
only for conservation goals but for the tribe’s economy.
“From a
tourism perspective, this has been absolutely huge,” Carey said.
What’s
unique about this particular cutthroat? Plenty, said Heki, the hatchery
manager.
The main
thing, of course, is their size. Several factors combine to cause these fish to
grow big and at an estimated rate of about a half-inch per month. Among them,
the Pilot Peak cutthroat reach sexual maturity at six or seven years —
relatively late. That allows them to put more energy early in life to growth,
“which is a good thing,” Heki said.
They also
switch from eating zooplankton to other fish when only a little more than a
foot long, earlier than other cutthroats, which also helps promote quicker
growth. Heki also believes they are long-lived, maybe 15 or 20 years, which
could make for some whopper old-timers.
“These
are the traits we are looking for,” Heki said, adding that decades of efforts
to restore Pyramid’s cutthroats may well have reached a positive tipping point.
“It’s
been a long time, and this is very exciting,” Heki said. “Now, it’s tangible.”
DNA confirms Pyramid Lake
trout's origin
By Mary Peacock
Bringing
them home required years of costly efforts combined with cutting-edge science
to scrutinize clues of the past.
In the
end, DNA analysis confirmed what experts had suspected for decades. Cutthroat
trout pulled from a once-fishless stream in the rugged mountains on the
Nevada-Utah line were the last remaining remnants of the native Lahontan
cutthroat trout, also known as Pilot Peak cutthroats, that disappeared from
Pyramid Lake nearly 70 years ago.
After Bob
Behnke discovered the fish in that stream in the late 1970s, he and other
experts agreed their characteristics indicated they were descendants of the
original cutthroat strain. They had the right look, grew the right way.
The
experts also knew that Nevada officials in the early 1900s had pulled cutthroat
trout out of Pyramid Lake and, as one researcher put it, “dumped them into
streams all over the place.”
That was
the assumption about what had happened, and in this particular case, the
population survived.
Science
of the 1990s allowed researchers to examine DNA from the Pilot Peak cutthroats
found on the state line. The problem was that DNA from the museum mounts of
fish taken from Pyramid Lake, Lake Tahoe and the lower Truckee River before
they vanished from the area could not be examined for comparison.
Because
the specimens were preserved in formalin — which chemically bonds to DNA — the
old genetic material could not be successfully extracted.
“They
were really interested in finding out if these were the original fish,” said
Mary Peacock, a professor of biology and genetics expert at University of
Nevada, Reno. “But we had no way to get the DNA out.”
Fast
forward to around 2005, when evolving science solved the problem. Peacock and
colleagues then gained the ability to compare DNA taken from the Pilot Peak
strain with museum mounts of cutthroats taken from the Truckee River system
between 1872 and 1911. It was a match, or nearly so.
“I think
it was a watershed event,” Peacock said. “These guys are genetically the
closest. When you ask the question where these fish came from, the answer is
very clearly from the Truckee River system — from Pyramid Lake.”
