The dam is the first of a series of four man-made Truckee River barriers the fish will encounter when they pass upstream from the reservation that will be remediated by the Service and its partners with improved, natural fish passageways over the next few years. Image Details Pyramid Lake angler Rutilio Sterling Lara holds a freshly-landed 26-inch Lahontan cutthroat trout. “To get them all the way up into the full span of their range one day will be an amazing accomplishment for our hatchery, and something we can all be proud of.' “To see these fish we’ve raised from eggs in the hatchery growing to massive sizes in the lake over the past few years and now watching them run up the river has been the most rewarding experience in fish conservation I’ve ever had,” said Roger Peka, a Lahontan National Fish Hatchery fish biologist. Now, federal, state and tribal partners are building on the recovery and unique genetic preservation work by the hatchery to boost the Truckee’s world-class sport fishery with the return of the state fish of Nevada. Angling stories by Gold Rush settlers in the late 1800s told of 60-pound “monster salmon trout” that were abundant in the river.īy 1940, the fish had vanished from the system. Historical records describe an era when native trout migrated more than 120 miles from Pyramid Lake to Lake Tahoe unhindered by man-made barriers or introduced predators. “This year they’re using the high water flows to run even further up into territory they haven’t been documented in since the late 1930s.” “Last year was the first time we observed the cutthroat moving out of the lake and spawning naturally in the lower reaches of river since the hatchery first began raising them from our brood stock in 1995 and stocking them in the lake with the help of the tribe in 2006,” said Lisa Heki, project leader for the hatchery complex.

Fish and Wildlife Service’s Lahontan National Fish Hatchery Complex and Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe have helped the fish, once thought to be extinct, to successfully migrate from Pyramid Lake into the lower Truckee River for spawning. Credit: Dan Hottle/USFWSĭrought-breaking precipitation combined with two decades of conservation actions by the U.S.

Image Details Roger Peka, a Lahontan National Fish Hatchery Complex fish biologist, surveys the Numana Dam fish ladder on the Truckee River inside the Pyramid Lake Paiute tribal land boundary.

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