Biggest Cat Caught In Pyramid Lake
By Gregory C. Wasky
We are a group of 12 guys from Placerville that go to the opener at Pyramid Lake every year for the last 14 years. But this year.......well this year something and everything was different about the lake and we thought it was note worthy. First off , the fishing was the best we have ever had at the lake. Many of our guys averaged over 50 fish per rod, yep we only kept two per regulations. We also caught several over 6 pounds. But better than that.....the cutthroat have never been fatter or harder fighters than this trip! We had heard rumors that the fish had been somehow breed or something with Eagle Lake trout. Well if it is true.....it sure in the heck worked! The cutthroat in Pyramid have never known to be great fighters.....it all changed this year, Eagle Lake trout move over! Not only that.....but we have never seen so much bait in the water.......tons of it. We hit numerous bait balls 40 feet deep from top to about 60 feet in depth and several hundred feet long, so thick you couldn't see 1 foot into them, it was awesome! Our average fish was about 20 to 22 inches long and about 3 pounds.
Ok.....here is the weirdest fish story......that has ever happened to me. The title of this story may make you think we caught a catfish, yep we know there are no catfish in Pyramid Lake. Myself, Greg Wasky (editor and chief of the newsletter for the now defunct "Placerville Fish & Tackle Club" now trying to survive as an architect in Placerville) and Bob Powell (Owner of Powell Bros. Steamer restaurant in Placerville) were jigging for cutthroats about 15 feet off of the north side of Pyramid island on the east side of the lake. We see an animal swimming towards us that came from a small rock island about 200 yards north of our location. We were trying guess what is was, hmmm muskrat....no, hmmmm do they ever have muskrat at Pyramid...shoot we don't know. As it got closer, about 150 feet from our location (dam hate gettin' old and ya can't see stuff until it's under your nose)
we both say dang......it looks like a cat? It got a little closer yes it a cat alright........a bobcat! I whip out the camera and take a shot of the cat. It looks like it is about a year old or so and is make a growling noise as it gets closer to the island next to us. As you already probably know, Pyramid Island shoots straight up out to the water in a spectacular vertical climb out to the water. At the face of the island is a shear cliff that plunges more than a hundred feet to the bottom of the lake. The bobcat as it approaches the island and us, realizes at that point that is isn't going to be able to climb the face of the cliff so it turns and heads toward our boat! Now I have caught all kinds of things out of the water, from Marlin in Costa Rica to Golden Trout in the Sierras. And yep I have snagged or caught some unusual things out of the waters and tossed them back to be told later as just another fish story. But I had this feeling that this bobcat wouldn't be as easy as some of the other things I have tossed back over board to get back into the water. We could see that the cat was very tired and was almost out of strength so I grabbed my long handled fish net to try to save the little guy........yeh right, little with some fairly nasty claws and some rather pointy teeth. I was a little to slow and the cat managed to grab hold of my bottom plate on my remote-troll bracket for my kicker motor before I got there with the net..........Holy----sh*%*t!!!! Sorry we didn't get a photo of the bobcat on my kicker motor bracket but we were just a tad busy at the time....hope you understand. I lowered my net down between my main motor and the kicker....oh man there is a god! The cat that was now laying on the bottom plate of my remote-troll bracket climbed into the net (oh man I might go to church next weekend....so how are the bitin' next weekend....lol). Anyway, I gently raise the net up and out over the water......very far out! The cat seem to be complacent, so we took another photo opportunity. With that done...Ok so I was really starting the motor and shooting photos at the same time.....may not be all that smart but I am not stupid! With Bob holding the the net I motor to a sandy shore a couple of hundred yards away. We run the boat up on the sand but we are still about 75 feet from shore. My faithful first mate Bob decides that its more of a Captain's job to jump overboard with a cat in the net to walk it to shore. Ya don't get paid enough for kinda stuff! So I kick off the old boat shoes and over I go. Bob hands me the net............ya can't believe how close two pair of hands can get to the end of a fish net handle. The bobcat seemed not to mind, so I head for shore, slowly stepping around rocks and such. I walk up onto the beach with the cat in the net, choose a nice spot then I ...........oh-oh.....I didn't have a plan for this part of the adventure. By this time the cat had regained a little of its energy and I was trying to go through my memory banks trying to recall just how fast a bobcat can run on land. The great plan that jumped into my head was to talk to it like I would my Labrador, Riley, when she was a good girl. Gawd I was hoping this wasn't a spanish speaking Bobcat....lol. So I slowly lower the net to the ground until it touched ground. Guess how long you can go without blinking? The cat just laid there as the rim of the net passed its nose on it's descent towards the sand below.......about 6 inches down. Just like the old joke I tell my wife, 6 inches is a lot longer than is seems! The rim is now on the sand and the cat is laying down on top of it, just looking at me, nope the cat is not blinking either. I slowly let go of the net and walk back towards the water keeping my eye on the cat, nope I still haven't blinked yet, at this point I was sure if I could remember how too. I figured that if that cat could change directions in the water and get to my boat before I could grab a net, it might be able to do something like that on land. Yep I'm no rocket scientist but I am college edgemacated! The cat remained on my net......my good net, as I continued back to the boat. I walked back to the boat to make sure my first mate was ok, I was sure worried about him ........captains job is never done. Once I get back, Bob and I are trying to decide what to do next. First thing on my mind...........get my good net back from that dang cat! Our plan of attack is to wait for the cat to leave, pretty smart aren't we. We thought so, but as fate would have it the cat decides its too tired and hungry so it lays back down on my net, bummer it's a really good net. We can see the cat is far more tired than we thought and we decide to help it along. We dig into our grub on board and find some summer sausage, chicken, and some albacore Bob had caught over in Fort Bragg last month. Just as a note, bobcats don't much care for spicy summer sausage even if they are starving, picky little bi*%*h. Then it dawned on us that it maybe thirsty, Pyramid Lake has a salt and alkaline content to it so it is not real drinkable. We cut a plastic water bottle in half and walked back over to the cat on the beach....oops I'm sorry, I walked back to the beach alone. But in hind site it was probably better than two yahoos bumping into one another trying to run back across water to the boat if the cat suddenly decided it had rested enough. I slowly pushed the water up close to the cat. The cat went directly for the water............success.....and I am a far cry from a T.V. Australian Crocodile Hunter. I gathered up the nerve to grab my net and headed back to the boat. By this time some other shore fisherman had arrived on the scene and we left it to them. We took a couple more photos and went back to do some more fantastic Cutthroat fishing!
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