Heenan Lake sits high in Alpine County, and it is not a place you fish casually — it is the brood-stock water for the Lahontan cutthroat, the strain that built Pyramid's reputation a couple of valleys north. For most of the year the gate is shut and the fish are left to their work. When the season cracks open, usually for a short stretch in the autumn, you get a brief, civilised crack at big wild cutthroat in a small alpine lake, all of it catch-and-release. It is a fishery that asks you to slow down. The cutthroat here have time to look, the water is cold and clear, and the wind off the ridge will rearrange your plans without asking. You come for the fish, but you remember the place.
- Lake
- Mixed