My friend's kid is now hooked for life after landing his first Pyramid MONSTER!
My good friend Mark went on his annual mountain trout trip October 1st. He called me from his kayak on a high-country lake at 3:00 PM this afternoon and he was on rainbow trout #37. None were under 2lbs and several were over 5lbs. He caught the majority of his fish on lures and overheard some guys, in the distance, bragging about catching their 4 fish and making references to the 'dumb-ass' fishing for planters out of his kayak by the stocking truck...
The truth is... Only the white pelicans were catching planter trout. Mark was catching only chunky, scrappy holdovers... but Mark could care less... he had nothing to prove. He was just happy to be catching fish. He was also exhausted... from today and from the day before where he fished a more popular and populous lake. You see, yesterday, he'd battled Pyramid cutthroats for pretty much 7 hours straight with a small group of friends on a boat.
After briefing his friends, some of whom were new to the Pyramid Cutthroat experience, he sent young Jake out on one of his Hobie kayaks with a light tackle, 9 ft spinning rod and a jig and a net. He told the 8th-grader to work the bottom slowly and not to get too far from the bank and to holler out if he needed anything.
Local Pyramid fly-guide, Rob Anderson was in the vicinity where Jake was headed so Mark and Paul (Jake's dad) figured the kid was in good hands... and later this would prove to be truer than at first believed...
Half an hour later, Mark and the guys on the boat heard some commotion coming from Jake's direction. There was at first concern that the boy might have lost a paddle or worse... capsized his 'yak! They exchanged text messages and in Jake's reply was news of a 15lber he'd caught and released. It was Jake's first cutthroat trout.
Now, they say lightning never strikes the same place twice... but if you spend enough winters fishing in the mountains, you KNOW that just isn't true...
It wasn't 10 minutes later that Jake was making noise again. This time, Mark and Paul could see the boy's orange watercraft scooting quickly along and away from the shoreline and disappearing from sight. The guys were set to pull up anchor and go check on the 'newly-Christened' lad but before they did, MR. Anderson showed them 2 thumbs-up as he left his boat, got in a smaller craft and paddled towards a very excited, Jake...
It was soon a tense moment but for all the right reasons... You see, Jake had just tied into an EVEN BIGGER trout than the large buck he'd hooked 10 minutes before. THIS behemoth... put the kid and his gear to the test and he handled it like a pro, er uh... that is... 'til it came time to LAND IT! "Sir! I need a bigger net!" he exclaimed as he struggled to land the large fish...
Fortunately, Rob Anderson, class-act guide AND GUY that he is... didn't blink nor think twice about dropping his fly rod, excusing himself briefly from his boat and his clients and paddling over to help the boy land, photograph and carefully release his new Personal Best Lahontan Cutthroat Trout!
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