We're here at the Wall Canyon Reservoir in Northern Nevada, and I'm meeting up with Travis Hawks, a Biologist for the Nevada Department of Wildlife.

Why, you ask.

I'm not exactly sure.

All I know is we're going to be conducting some sort of biological survey that involves fish, a boat, and some sort of zapping.

Let's have some fun.

♪♪♪ -I'm Connor Fields, your new host for my favorite show, Outdoor Nevada.

♪♪♪ Wall Canyon Reservoir is located up in the northwestern part of the state about 160 miles north of Reno.

Wall Canyon Reservoir is a hidden gem for outdoor enthusiasts looking for tranquility and adventure.

Surrounded by towering cliffs and pristine wilderness, the reservoir offers breathtaking views in a serene atmosphere perfect for fishing, boating, and hiking.

Anglers flock to its shores in search of trophy-sized trout and bass.

The reservoir also provides a peaceful escape for camping under the stars, with designated campgrounds offering amenities such as picnic areas and firepits.

Whether seeking solitude in nature or seeking thrilling outdoor activities, Wall Canyon Reservoir invites visitors to immerse themselves in the beauty of Nevada's wilderness.

Today I'm at the Wall Canyon Reservoir where I met with Travis Hawks with the Nevada Department of Wildlife.

I'm going to be assisting him and some of his coworkers with a smallmouth bass survey.

So here's how this works: First, we load the boat onto the water.

Now, this isn't a normal boat.

This boat is outfitted with conductors that will send a charged current into the water surrounding the boat.

These conductors are lowered into the water.

A shock is sent through the water, which essentially freezes the fish, but only momentarily.

That's when you scoop them up with a net.

From there you deposit the fish into a tank with the reservoir's water already in it.

Less than a minute later, the fish are all good and back to normal.

And so we're gonna start doing what?

What are we doing today?

(Travis Hawks) So basically we're going to capture a bunch of smallmouth bass.

-Okay.

-Our agency likes to move fish around so we can provide anglers more opportunity.

And this reservoir is really productive; we have lots of smallmouth bass in here.

We've got a window right now.

We had a good winter.

We got a lot of water in a lot of other reservoirs.

So we're doing our best to capture as many of those fish as we can and get them to these other reservoirs to give people more places to go fishing.

-Once we've lowered the conductors into the water, we head over to the shoreline.

I feel like a little bit of anticipation and pressure here.

[laughter] It's like a game.

-Everyone you miss, you owe us.

-The smaller fish like to hang out at the shoreline near the cover of rocks and vegetation in the water.

And they're typically using those rocks.

Any kind of bank substrate, they like to hide in.

So there's one right there.

Good job.

[straining] -First try!

Got it!

-See the ones floating out there?

Those are ones that we already shocked.

-Oh, yep.

I see.

I'll get the left one.

What is super impressive is the piloting of the boat.

It is constantly having to be maneuvered and adjustments being made.

That way it can stay close to the shoreline.

And with today's windy conditions, it is not easy.

-Those aren't what we want, but you can net them.

-This is not as easy as you would think.

-Swing and a miss!

Along the way, not only are we netting the smallmouth bass that we're looking for, some other species in the reservoir are showing up too.

We get some trout and a few sunfish.

Those get tossed back right away.

We are strictly looking for smallmouth bass.

Smallmouth bass only?

-Yep.

Ooh, there's a big trout there.

Net that real quick.

Let me see that one.

So, good timing.

That's a brown trout, brown trout.

So those are wild in this reservoir.

We don't stock them.

They exist on their own.

They spawn on their own.

They're a cool fish.

You can pull him out.

-Toss him back in?

-Yeah, you can throw it off on that side.

-Aaahhh!

Whoa, it moved!

It scared me.

I'm sorry.

He's going back in.

[laughter] I wasn't ready for it.

Do you have an approximate number you're trying to get today?

-As many as we can.

Typically doing this project over the course of two or three days, we'll pull out-- [straining] -I got it!

- --we'll pull out about 1,500.

If we can get more than 500 today, tonight, that will be good.

-All right.

If you had to ballpark, how many smallmouth bass are in this reservoir?

Total.

-I mean, it's tough.

We've never done a full-scale population assessment, but it's easily north of 50,000.

I mean, that's tough to say, but I would, I would be confident that there's somewhere in the-- -If it was 50,000 over/under, you'd take the over?

-Oh, yeah.

I'd say in the neighborhood of 100,000.

-100,000?

That's just one of the species?

-Yep, correct.

Yep, there's plenty of them.

That's why we don't have an issue pulling them out of here.

-We continued to cruise the shoreline, zapping and scooping.

One down, 1,400 to go.

[laughter] Each one of these fish are only a couple of inches long.

Once they're relocated, they can grow up to 8 to 10 inches in length and weigh up to 5 to 6 pounds.

-All right.

Count them.

How many you got?

-I got at least like eight.

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8.

-All right.

-How many did you get?

-1-2-3-4-5-6.

-See, it is the net.

For as many smallmouth bass that are estimated to be in the reservoir, Travis and I only netted a tiny fraction.

Travis and his team will be here for the next couple days.

And this process takes place not only during the day, but at night too.

Actually, night is a better time to capture the fish.

The darkness brings the fish out and closer to the surface.

This is because the water temperature lowers, and the darkness provides protection from the eyes of predators.

So how long has the Nevada Department of Wildlife tried to increase fishing opportunities for the residents of the state?

-Oh, I mean, it's-- the Nevada Department of Wildlife as a department has been around for decades.

Initially, it was the Nevada Fish and Game Commission.

When they started it, it was just a few people.

There was a State of Nevada Fish Commissioner, one person who did a lot of this all over the state.

And our agency has evolved over the years to what it is now.

But wildlife management, in general, across the West and across the US has been ongoing since the early 1900s.

Teddy Roosevelt kind of started the whole process of wildlife management, trying to provide more opportunity, and to what it is today.

So wildlife conservation?

-Exactly.

-What's the name of it?

-The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation.

And you know, the idea behind that is there needs to be wildlife on the landscape for people to enjoy.

But people need to be able to basically buy licenses to enjoy it.

That money funds-- -Goes back in to-- -Exactly.

- --protecting and preserving.

-Without that funding, we wouldn't have the wildlife on the landscape we have today, and people don't realize that.

They go out, and they might see some deer and elk.

They don't realize that without the funding of sportsmen and women, those animals very well may not exist.

-After a few hours on the water, it was time to count and measure.

♪♪♪ Now, they don't actually count all of the fish.

An average is established for both length and weight.

This helps them come to a final count.

-65.

That's good.

-In this session, we netted an estimated amount of just over 500 smallmouth bass.

Like Travis said, the goal is 1,500.

I'm glad I was able to help.

How do you figure out that there's too many of a certain type of fish?

-A big thing for us is just using anglers because we can't be everywhere at once.

Guys come up and fish.

We've got things around this reservoir.

You might have seen them driving around.

We call them "drop boxes."

-I did see them.

-Basically, a survey form in there.

And we ask anglers when they're done fishing to fill it out, and then we come in and we pull those forms a couple times a summer, a couple times a year.

-Simple questions like what did you catch?

How many did you catch?

Things like that?

-Exactly.

It asks the species, the number, were you satisfied, things like that.

It helps us make our management decisions.

If we see that people are catching a lot of smallmouth bass but they're all pretty small, it indicates to us that there is that overpopulation occurring.

Then we decide, okay, we can come in and remove some of them or maybe stock larger, bigger trout that are going to feed on some of those smaller smallmouth bass.

There's a lot that goes into it.

Nothing that we do is perfect, but we're always tweaking it and always trying to improve things for the public and for the wildlife.

-Do you have like a central fish database?

How do you keep track of all this stuff?

-We actually do.

We have what we call the NDOW Fisheries Database, and it exists on a shared drive with all the biologists.

And we can pull data from it, we can add data to it, we can look at it to see what's going on in other regions, but, yeah, we're constantly modifying it.

-Are you gonna add anything today?

-Yeah.

All of this that we've done today, all the fish that get moved, the sizes, everything that we've done, water temperatures, a lot of data we're gonna take that we haven't yet, all goes onto there.

So when we're gone or when we've moved on and a new biologist is in the position, they can look back and say, Back in 2023, a year where there was a great winter, they saw this.

And you can kind of predict things based on that.

-So we spent today gathering these fish that you're going to take to other reservoirs.

Can you fish this reservoir, or is it strictly for creating the fish for other reservoirs?

-Nope.

This is a very popular fishery.

We got people come up here daily, weekly.

People camp out up here.

This is all public land around here.

And it's productive and, yeah, it's a great spot to come fishing.

-And have you fished this lake?

-I have, multiple times.

Yeah.

-Catch anything good?

-Yeah.

It's one of my favorite spots.

I like to tell people about it, but it's pretty awesome.

-Well, I think we should do some fishing then.

-I'm happy to take you and show you some of the other species you haven't seen yet.

-I think it might be a little harder to catch them with traditional fishing versus netting them and shocking them so they can't go anywhere.

-It's way more fun, though, way more fun.

-And that is exactly what we did.

We took a break and did a little fishing.

Mac, Travis's dog, even came along.

♪♪♪ It was tough going from netting a couple hundred fish to not even catching one.

Oh, well, there's always tomorrow.

Once the sun set, I sat down with Travis to learn more about the survey and the reason for it.

Travis, thank you so much for taking us out today.

I had a blast helping you collect fish... trying to catch some fish.

I guess that's why they call it "fishing," not "catching."

I do have a few questions for you, some things I think people will find interesting.

First question I have is how do you collect the data?

-So basically, it really depends on what we're after.

But for the most part with fish work, we want to know that the fish that we're collecting are healthy.

Or if they're not, we want to know why.

So we typically are going to measure fish.

So you have a ruler, a meter stick, whatever.

We get fish lengths.

We usually will get weight.

So we'll take, How many grams does the fish weigh, that type of thing.

When we collect that data, it enables us to figure out the health of the fish.

So there's some standard formulas, mathematical stuff we use to take the length times the weight, and it'll tell us basically if that fish is healthy or not.

From that data, we can make a lot of decisions.

Is it-- if we have a bunch of unhealthy fish, it might lead us to think, okay, there's too many fish in the system or there's something wrong with the water chemistry, things like that.

If we see all the fish we're getting are healthy, then we know we're doing a good job and may not need to do such active management.

-What does the historical data tell you about the ecosystem and the fish within the ecosystem?

-The historical data is super important for what we do just because, you know, we run through cycles.

So drought cycles, you know, wet winters, things like that, they've happened before.

They're gonna happen again.

And we can look at that historical data and say, okay, that year they had a really wet winter, and then the fishery exhibited this.

They had more fish or they had more of this type of fish, things like that, where we can say, you know, into the future, Oh, we've had a really wet winter.

We can expect to see more of that same type of fish that existed the last time this happened.

So, you know, having a long data set, a long-term data set is super important for us.

-And the populations within the reservoir, are they stable?

-They are.

Again, you know, in Nevada we're at the mercy of the elements.

So they, the fish, specifically in a reservoir like this, do follow the weather patterns.

So a drought year, we see the population go down a little bit.

A wet year, it comes back up.

If we have decent weather for a few years running, the fishery is stable and produces good fish.

But we can pretty much predict what's going to happen just based on the weather conditions.

-That's really interesting.

I never would have guessed the weather affected the fish so much, right?

What factors tell you the population of the fish within the reservoir are stable?

-The biggest thing is just the conditions, the, you know, good winter, a lot of water, stable water.

So we didn't see the reservoir get drained this year.

All that indicates to us that we're going to have a stable fishery.

The fish have plenty of feed, plenty of room with all the water, the water is deep and cold which is important for a fishery.

So yeah, the biggest, the biggest thing is just knowing that we had a good winner and a lot of water came down the system.

-I'm sensing this theme here that historical data is very important.

-Yes, absolutely.

It's, I can't tell you how many times when I'm working through a report or trying to figure something out, I access some of our old files.

And those old files reference older files that no longer exist, but there's definitely a timeline of historical records that are crucial to what we do today.

-How are the waters that these populations of fish are living in changing over time?

-We're seeing a bigger kind of longer drying period in the state of Nevada.

So we have longer periods where we don't have good winters.

So we'll go five, six years of what we consider drought-like conditions, followed by one or two really wet winters.

So something similar to what we just experienced here, where from 2016 till 2020-- or 2022, we saw a drought, we saw not not good winters and reservoirs and things drying up.

And then a year like last winter, where we got beyond average winters and everything filled back up, it causes the fisheries to suffer because, you know, everything's condensed into these shrunken reservoirs.

And then when they refill, there's a whole lot of room for very few fish.

So it's kind of twofold.

One, it's hard for the public to go out and enjoy those fisheries, because there's a lot of fish in a very-- or a few fish in a very large area.

They can't catch them.

And then also for the fisheries themselves, when there's just a few fish in a big area, it's harder for them to find each other when it's time to spawn, make more fish.

So it typically takes longer to repopulate a fishery.

-How does the data help you predict what's going to happen in the future with these populations?

-Really just looking at past years' conditions and seeing how the fishery responded, what was there.

What we did is also very important to look at.

Did we stock more of a certain species in a dry year and they did bad, or did they do really good?

If we can look at that stuff and see that this was tried back then, didn't work, then we're not going to do it again.

And vice versa.

If we see that, oh, we stocked, you know, we stocked a bunch of rainbow trout, and the following year, the reservoir was just brimming with rainbow trout, we say, okay, that worked.

Let's do it again.

-How does the intervention strategy that we did today affect the ecosystem as a whole and not just that particular species of fish?

-So just by removing a number of fish, we're going to create basically space for the fish that are still there.

We've got a number of species in this reservoir, some that people don't even fish for or don't even know exist.

There's a sucker species here that doesn't exist anywhere else.

By removing some of the smallmouth bass, it's going to allow for more forage for the rest of the species and basically allow for them to be healthier.

And at the same time moving those fish to other fisheries where they don't exist yet allows for those fish to kind of blow up in population numbers and populate other places.

-Well, I really appreciate you sharing all that information with me.

Our day is not done yet.

We've got one more thing.

What are we about to go do?

-So we're gonna go back out.

Now that it's dark, fish tend to move closer to the surface.

After dark, they're more comfortable.

They don't feel like they're gonna get taken out by a predator.

So we're gonna get back out on the electrofishing boat, and we're gonna make a couple more passes and try to get a few more fish that we might have missed earlier.

-All right.

Then tomorrow, I'm looking forward to doing some more fishing.

We're going to move upstream a little bit.

Where are we fishing tomorrow?

-Yeah, we're gonna go right up above the reservoir, not far from the reservoir itself.

There's kind of a resident population of trout that exists in the stream close to the lake, and take you up there and see if we can find a few of them.

One would be better than we did today.

-Yep.

[laughter] -Over the course of the night, several hundred more smallmouth bass were netted and readied for transport.

♪♪♪ The next morning while the team slept in a bit, Travis and I went out to Wall Canyon Creek, not too far from camp, for some more fishing.

Mac even came along too.

♪♪♪ So what kind of fish are we gonna be trying to catch today?

-So there's wild brown trout in here.

And then there's also bowcutt trout.

So basically a hybrid between rainbow and cutthroat.

-And these are the same ones that are downstream in the reservoir?

-Yep, some of them.

Yeah.

-So tell me about Mac.

How long have you had Mac?

-I've had him for eight years.

He's eight now.

He's goes everywhere with me.

-Yesterday, you were telling me about the catch-per-hour rate, what's the catch per hour expected up here?

-Um, if we knew what we were doing, it would be probably, you know, one fish every ten minutes or so.

As you move up the system, once you fish one spot for a few minutes, you're kind of done.

The fish are either scared out of it, or there's nothing there.

But as you move up the system, every little spot you hit, you want to give it five to ten minutes and then move on.

-So for someone who wants to get into fishing, what's the most important thing?

Is it your pole?

Is it the bait?

Is it the reel?

What would you say is the number one thing?

-Just going-- -Just doing it?

- --is the number one thing, yeah.

You're never gonna learn if you're not trying it.

And I think a lot of people get intimidated by, you know, there's thousands of dollars worth of stuff you can buy.

But really, it's just getting out and doing it and learning.

I mean, just-- -Practice makes perfect?

-Exactly.

Just watching you from last night to today, your casting has gotten a hundred times better.

-Well, I appreciate that.

-Yeah.

It's just-- and then, I mean, the more you do it, the more you learn about individual fisheries, different techniques, and I mean, I've never had any formal instruction or anything, but I'm fairly confident I can go just about anywhere now and at least have an idea of what I need to use.

-Yeah.

-I'm gonna cast down past you real quick.

-Yep, go ahead.

-Let's see if we can find something.

The other thing is you want to kind of, especially on small streams like this, is try to keep your shadow out.

It will spook to fish, and we got the sun behind us right now which makes it challenging.

-Right.

I guess the fish see your shadow and think it's a big animal.

-Predators, yep.

-Yep.

-Yep, everything has a predator.

-All right.

We had no luck at this spot.

You want to try heading down a little bit?

-Yeah.

Let's hit that bigger pool down below us.

-And that's exactly what we did.

We fished for five to ten minutes, then moved on.

It's gotta be the spot.

It can't be us, right?

-Yeah.

No, for sure not us.

All right.

I would say right about there.

-Right about here?

-Yeah.

-Okay.

And then it's gonna be tough with the wind.

But if you can cast, cast down.

And then, yeah, just kind of slowly bring it back.

Let me give it one try with that one to see what happens.

-Okay.

You get one more try.

-They're not hungry in this spot.

-I will say that was a great cast, though.

That was right down the middle.

It was like a field goal kicker going right down the middle from 50 yards.

-As long as it looks like you know what you're doing.

[laughter] -We didn't have any luck here.

But you know what?

I have no complaints.

This has been a great time.

All right.

No luck again.

-Nope.

I think we're pretty well done.

-I do appreciate the lesson.

-Yeah.

-I do appreciate you showing me all these beautiful places.

-Happy to.

-And yeah, thank you so much.

-Yeah.

Thanks for coming.

-Yeah.

You ready to get out of here, Mac?

Ready to go?

He said, Not yet.

We need about six more fish before I'm ready to go.

-He's mad he didn't catch anything.

-Travis and the team from the Nevada Department of Wildlife really put in the work.

The more time I spend with them all, the more I've learned to appreciate everything that they do to give us the best opportunity to enjoy the outdoors.

I never realized just how much they do.

I look forward to catching up with Travis and Mac again, and hopefully soon.

A big thanks to everyone with the Nevada Department of Wildlife.

The beauty of Nevada continues to amaze me.

And being able to share this adventure with the amazing and dedicated people made this even more fun.

I hope that you, too, will get out and enjoy exploring our beautiful state.

I also hope that you learned a little bit about what it takes to care and maintain both the wildlife and the land in Nevada.

Until next time, I'm Connor Fields, and this is Outdoor Nevada.

♪♪♪