Pyramid Lake or Fishing and Photography

Finally after days of labor I finished editing my trip to Pyramid Lake in Nevada. It's hard to imagine why it took so long. Probably because I keep taking more photographs before I finish editing what I already have.



We drove up in the snow and were unable or is it unwilling to fish the first evening in the wind and snow.We stayed at Crosby's Lodge in Sutcliffe which is a fancy sounding name for a bunch of neat and clean single wide trailers that they rent out to fishermen and boaters.







Each day we would arise at four in the morning and make a lunch for later. We were on our ladders fishing in the dark at Pelican Beach by five thirty. Yes, that's right I did say fishing on ladders. The vast majority of fishermen fish from step ladders. You take your step ladder out into the water until you are roughly chest deep and then you climb up onto your ladder and fish. It enables you to be able to cast farther and be able to sight fish much easier.









After a morning of fishing we would take a mid day siesta and then go back and fish around five in the evening until way past dark. Then we would return to dine in the trailer. We took turns cooking meals so I can say we ate rather well. Joe, Lou and Steve are all accomplished cooks.






There were plenty of pelicans to go around I spent many hours chasing them down and photographing them. They had the nasty habit of trying to eat your fish when you had one on the line. I had to pull one of my fish from a pelican's mouth. When I unhooked the fish it had beak marks all over it. By the way the fish in the lake, Lahontan Cutthroats are huge. The smallest trout I caught was fifteen inches. There were several trout caught that were over ten pounds. It was really cool to be standing on your ladder and have these huge trout swim right under your ladder.









I had a major mishap on the last day of the trip. While photographing my friends fishing I dropped my lens cap into the water. Duh! To further complicate the error I lunged for the lens cap with my 50D hanging on the camera strap around my neck. Hearing a plunking sound I realized that my camera was half submerged in the water. I immediately stood back up and turned the camera off. As I was doing so a blue light glowed and then went dead. OOps! I have never seen a blue light before.
My camera was dead.



I took the camera to shore and pulled the batteries out and took the lens off. When I got home in Willits some 6 hours later I put everything in the oven on low (130 F) for four hours. Then I let it sit overnight. The camera came back to life with the exception of having to clean the lens to camera contacts. That's not to say that corrosion won't kill the camera later. At least it wasn't salt water.

So don't bend over into the water when you have your camera around your neck.

God's blessings to all,

chris