STATE FISH

“T he Truckee River was so thick with fish you could walk across it on their backs.”

That was the image cited by Reno fishermen in the mid-1800s about the abundance of Lahontan cutthroat trout. The native trout, designated as Nevada’s state fish in 1981, was once a sustainable food source in the Truckee Meadows. But by the end of the 1800s that image changed. Tailings from papers mills clogged the river from bank to bank, choking off all life in the Truckee.

Lahontan cutthroat trout is the only trout native to the Great Basin and is one of the largest inland trout – growing to more than 35 pounds. For 1,000 years, bands of the Paiute tribe sustained themselves on the bountiful cutthroat found in Pyramid Lake, while Truckee Meadows miners and settlers depended on the fish as a food source throughout the 1800s.

SPECIES DEMISE

But by the mid-1900s what had been a sustainable fishery for eons had essentially died out. As with the decline of most species, it was a cumulative effect over many years. In the late-1800s a cannery was built at Pyramid Lake that exported about 100,000 pounds of trout per year to grocery stores and restaurants around the country via iced rail cars. Upstream, fishermen pulled Lahontan cutthroat trout from the river, creating a successful commercial fishery in Reno. Thousands of pounds of trout were shipped to the finest restaurants throughout the West.

But the real death knell came with the completion of Derby Dam in 1905. The dam, 30 miles upstream of Pyramid Lake, diverted half the Truckee’s flow into the Carson River, lowering levels in Pyramid Lake, de-watering the mouth of the river, and destroying spawning habitat for the trout.

By the mid-1940s, Lahontan cutthroat trout were essentially gone in the Truckee basin. Overfishing, along with diminished water quality from the paper mills upstream and reduced water quantity from the hundreds of diversions created along the Truckee River, contributed to the fish’s disappearance.

STOCKING WATERWAYS

For years, fishery managers from local, state, and tribal governments have worked together to bring back this native trout. Stocks of Lahontan cutthroat trout have been developed, and now thousands of the trout are placed in Pyramid Lake, Fallen Leaf Lake, and the Truckee River every year for recreational fishing. While many fishermen practice catch and release with the fish, they make for great eating – a meaty trout with a mild salmon taste.

The long-term goal of fishery managers is to develop a self-sustaining population in the Truckee basin. What a sight it would be to see native trout once again so thick in the Truckee that kayakers would have to navigate around them.

For details about the Lahontan cutthroat trout, visit Ndow.org, Dfg.ca.gov/fish

Nativetroutflyfishing.com/lahontancutthroat.htm, Pyramidlake.us, or Fws.gov/lahontannfhc.

Randi Thompson is a government and public relations consultant and a freelance writer living in Reno. She has more than 10 years of experience working for wildlife agencies in Washington, DC, and Nevada.