I like walking into the bar at Crosby Lodge for a couple of reasons. One, I can get my fishing permit. The other, I can usually get an up-to-date, first-hand report on the fishing from the barkeeper. (Tawny works as a barkeep at Crosby's, lives locally, and fishes hard.) As I come to know Pyramid Lake, I've learned one important thing - the fishing turns on with strong winds.
Tawny fished the early half of the week and did really well. My buddies and I fished the later half of the week and didn't do quite as well. The difference - the wind was blowing 30 MPH with gusts to 40 in the early half of the week. The days we fished were not very windy. We scratched up some nice cutthroats (including one weighing 16 pounds), but the periods between were long and quiet.
Probably no big surprise, but fish prefer overhead cover when cruising shallow water. And the wind-generated chop churns up the shallows - pushing food down from the surface and pushing food up from the bottom. As Pyramid's Lahontans go into spawn mode in March and April, they move closer to the shore. They cruise pretty close to shore and can be spotted just as easy. On windless days, it's like standing over the largest aquarium in the greater Reno / Sparks area. Long lines of ladders with dudes throwing lures and flies don't much bother them.