6-29 SS Fish Ladder

 In the Northwest many of us are familiar with the concept of fish ladders but I have a fish ladder story that is very unusual next.

 Rick Worthington is the program director at KINF, one of our affiliate stations. He is also an avid fisherman and during a casual conversation the other day he told me about fishing off a ladder. Here’s Rick:  “Fishing with ladders sounds crazy upfront. But consider the body of water you are fishing in. A lot of times the fish like to hang around where that lip is, where it really starts to dive off in your body of water, and in this case we are talking about Pyramid Lake. And we are fishing for what, Rick? We are fishing for cutthroat trout, some of the biggest in the world you’ll find in Pyramid Lake just about 30 min. north of Reno, Nevada. Gigantic fish. Pyramid Lake Is tribe owned territory and they have some very strong restrictions on how big the fish can be before you can take them out of the water. So you walk in the water, you have your fly rod, your gear and a ladder. Step ladder. Very long walk way to get to where the fish like to hang out. It’s where the drop-off is so you have to go to the fish because you can’t fish for them with your fly rod unless you go out there. The problem is that the water will get to be about 5 to 6 feet deep where you’re at and you can’t fish in that either because it’s too hard. So you bring your ladder out with you, stand up on top of the ladder and you can fish from there and you can actually to where the fish hang out get out.”