November 11 -15 2025 – Wildhorse Reservoir, an hour north of Elko at 6,200 feet, sits quietly in the high desert, but this unassuming 3,000-acre lake grows some of the fattest, most powerful trout in Nevada. The Nevada Department of Wildlife stocks it aggressively with rainbows, cutbows, tigers, and browns, and the lake’s thriving yellow perch population fills every gap in the food chain. For its size, Wildhorse fishes like a miniature version of the famous alkaline giants—Pyramid, Crowley, Heenan, Eagle. A small lake with big potential and a surprisingly powerful biological engine underneath it.

The water chemistry is the foundation. Wildhorse leans alkaline, stabilizing pH and creating an environment where invertebrates explode in numbers. Stable pH means stable life cycles: endless midges, swarms of scuds, rich zooplankton, and thick weedbeds coated with snails. Calcium-rich water supports shell-forming insects and keeps oxygen levels higher year-round. The result is trout that grow unbelievably fast and stay thick, pink, and absurdly healthy. We opened a 16-inch rainbow that had a 13-inch girth and was literally packed solid with snails from throat to tail. A typical 20-inch fish weighs around four pounds here—normal, not special.

Because trout can’t successfully spawn in Wildhorse due to low flows, sediment, and temperature swings, the lake is engineered as a put-and-take fishery. That’s exactly why it works so well. Rainbows are stocked at nine inches and grow about two inches per month. An 18-inch fish is roughly a year old. A recently landed 12-pounder was estimated to be five to seven years old. Creel surveys for 2025 show the average trout caught at eighteen inches. With a five-fish daily limit, ten-fish possession limit, unlimited perch, and fish that run 35–40 pounds per full possession, Wildhorse is paradise for meat fishermen—and yet, for those of us who chase big trout on flies, it’s a trophy lake hiding in plain sight.

The Long Ride North

My cousin Wayne has talked up Wildhorse for years, painting it like trout Disneyland, but the nine-hour drive from San Jose always made me hesitate. Then I bought the Revel, and suddenly nine hours  seemed more like an invitation than a barrier. When Wayne said he and Benson were going, I cleared my schedule, loaded the van, and committed.

I planned to leave at five after work but managed to escape early and hit the road by two. California traffic was its usual misery, and diesel at six dollars a gallon made me appreciate Nevada before I even got there. Once I crossed the border, fuel dropped to three bucks, the road opened into 80-mph emptiness, and Starlink kept me connected to news, music, and podcasts the whole way. Somewhere during the drive my Mercedes cruise control quit—at my age, that feels like losing a limb. You don’t realize how much you rely on it until it’s gone. I drove the old-fashioned way, watching the sagebrush blur by.

I reached the Winnemucca Motel 6 at 11 p.m. Still a dive, still smelling faintly of cigarettes, but the sheets were clean and the nostalgia was strong. When I was a kid traveling the country with my parents, Motel 6 actually cost six dollars. Simpler times.

First Morning — Work, Fish, Repeat

I brewed coffee in the van at 6 a.m. and drove the remaining hour to Wildhorse. My plan was ridiculous but somehow workable: fish the morning, hop into a Zoom meeting at 10 pretending I was in my office, then meet Wayne and Benson afterward, check into camp at 2, and fish until dark.

In the first two hours I caught about a dozen nice fish including a royal flush – a tiger trout, a brown trout , a cutbow,  a bright chorme rainbow,  a dark spawning buck rainbow and a couple pearch.  None were huge, mostly twelve to eighteen inches. Respectable on most lakes, but this is Wildhorse, where that’s just the warm-up round.

When Wayne showed me his stringer, my jaw dropped. Four giants, two over five pounds. That was the beginning of the “Meng small-fish curse,” where I caught good fish but not their fish. While I was landing stout 18-inchers, Wayne and Benson were quietly stacking 21- to 24-inch chrome rockets. They are simply at another level. They live in trout country, fish weekly, and tune their stillwater skills like professional golfers refine their swing. Benson still has that Ninja-Jedi instinct—you can almost see him feel the fish.

Lessons From the Masters

This trip became a masterclass. I learned how to tie a sliding dropper rig using a tippet ring, swivel stop, and bobber stop so the upper fly can move if two fish pull in opposite directions. Benson proved it by landing two trout at once on 5X. Later he landed a single fish that had eaten both flies five feet apart. Wildhorse magic.

As if that weren’t enough, fighter jets routinely ripped across the sky. The reservoir lies inside the Nevada Test and Training Range, so F-14s and other aircraft regularly buzz overhead. You hear distant booms from training runs. There’s something strangely patriotic about reeling in a trout while an afterburner shakes your float tube. Makes the $80 out-of-state fishing license feel like a steal.

Camp Life on the Lake

The campground is right on the lake, with two loops nearly empty in the fall. Perfect timing. It runs on an honor-system credit card kiosk in the off-season, though online reservations help if you want a cabin or the one electric site—site 22, next to the bathrooms, the only site with real power and a water faucet.  For heat, cooking  and refrigeration, that’s luxury.

After setting up camp, we hit the lake again.  Benson and Wayne consistently caught fish all day.   We were all catching over 30 fish each a day as was I  but you dont keep score of the little ones under 18 inches here.   Its all about hooking fish over 20 inches that makes you count.  I found fish sliding onto the shallow flats as the evening turned glassy. You could literally see the wakes from cruising trout in the shallow flats.  With a floating line and a seal bugger with a pulse disc,  I could site fish moving schools of fish and as if a feeding bell went off,  for an hour and a half it was non stop action.    I led the fish and they ate like winter was coming. I kept two twenty-inch footballs—“Meng big.”     Wayne and Benson were around the bend in the deeper water and also caught fish,  but not many big ones either.

We had dinner at Amy’s Wildhorse Ranch & Resort, about five miles down the road—a great little spot with cabins, an RV hookup, cold beer, and the kind of food that tastes better after a cold day on the water.   I recomend the Wild

Thursday — A Clinic From the Boys

Thursday started for me with fried trout from the day before and eggs at camp. Wayne and Benson stopped by for early coffee—the cabins don’t have machines—and  headed out .  I followed shortly after.

All day they continued putting on a clinic. They consistently hooked larger fish while I caught plenty of smaller ones. Looking back, I  think I was working too close to shore where the smaller fish tend to hunt for food.   They were casting farther out into the lanes where the big roving schools moved. Wildhorse has size zones, and I was stuck in the middle-sized one.

By evening, the weather shifted—clouds, wind, the smell of incoming rain—and the trout poured onto the flats. Wayne and Benson found a massive school and experienced one of those rare windows where every cast connects. Big fish after big fish. Wayne later said he’d never seen it that hot. Meanwhile, I was around the corner catching “Meng small,” missing the motherlode by a few hundred yards.

That night I stayed at camp, cooked a feast of steak, vegetables, and sticky rice dumplings, FaceTimed Gina, hit my Starlink data limit, and switched to unlimited. For winter camping and remote work, the $150 Roam unlimited plan is unbeatable.

Friday — Last Day for the Boys, Redemption for Me

Friday morning we fished the boat-ramp wall again, catching good fish early before the bite died around nine. The lake calmed, pushing the big schools offshore beyond my range.

Wayne and Benson left at 1 p.m. I stayed, hoping for an evening repeat of the previous night. Instead of wind and chop, the lake turned to glass—a death sentence for shoreline fishing. I launched my float tube around three, trolled up two eighteen-inchers, marked one fast school in fifteen feet of water, and spent sunset casting over a mirror. A few small fish later, I went back to camp determined to try one last time in the morning.

Final Morning — Two Good Ones to End On

Saturday morning was frigid. Every cast froze my guides. But when the sun hit the water, fish began breaking the surface a hundred yards out—too far to reach, but a sign that the morning bite was coming alive.

I stretched every cast I had and managed to hook two fat twenty-inch rainbows—classic Wildhorse footballs. The window lasted an hour and then shut off instantly. By noon the lake was flat and lifeless again, and that told me it was time to head home.

Reflections on a First Trip to Wildhorse

My first impression is that being seventy miles from Reno is the perfect buffer. I saw only a handful of anglers all week, most of them older locals who clearly knew every inch of the place. Only three campsites were occupied. It’s cold, rugged, remote—not convenient at all. And that’s exactly the charm.

If you love trout fishing—real trout fishing—and enjoy catching thirty fish a day with the chance of a five- to eight-pound football at any moment, Wildhorse is worth every minute of the drive. It’s not easy. It’s not comfortable. But it’s pure.

Fishing with Wayne and Benson was hands-down the highlight of the whole week. Honestly, I found myself watching more than fishing—like some old guy sitting on a park bench feeding pigeons, just observing greatness. I definitely did not bring the right gear or the right flies to fish at their level. At one point I swear Benson tied on something that looked like it came from NASA.

But I learned a ton. In fact, this weekend confirmed something I’ve suspected for years:   The fastest way to get better at fishing isn’t guiding other people… it’s fishing regularly with people who can absolutely out-fish you, and then shamelessly stealing their techniques.

Huge thanks to Wayne for talking me into Wildhorse this week. We’re officially becoming the oldest surviving males in the family tree, and I appreciate him more than he knows. And thanks to Benson for sharing a few of his Jedi tricks with me—even if half of them made me realize I’ve been doing things wrong for 40 years.

I got home around nine, caught up with Gina, and processed my fish the next morning. I smoked most of them—fifteen pounds of perfect fillets—just in time for the holidays.

Next time, I’ll cast farther, fish the big-fish lanes more deliberately, and fine-tune my game. But I’m not complaining. Over thirty fish a day and several true Wildhorse giants is more than enough to make this a yearly trip. I only wish my dad were still alive—he would’ve absolutely loved this place,