This unique little fishery is limited to bank-fishing only, but virtually the entire shoreline is easily fishable. The banks drop steeply to a flat bottom, so most of the bass will hold within a few feet of shore. One trick to catching them is to fish parallel to the bank, keeping your bait in fish-holding water throughout the retrieve.

Stealth is important, for the same reason. Always fish ahead of you, rather than casting to water you’ve just walked past.

The same offerings that work at the WMA ponds will work here, too. But along the banks, the bottom is primarily chunks of rock with little aquatic growth, so traditional and lipless crankbaits become an option -- and quite an effective one.

Try retrieving perch- or sunfish-patterned crankbaits in mid-water to mimic the juvenile bluegill and redear sunfish that make up much of the bass’s diet. Or bang small crawfish-colored cranks along the rocks.

In the evening, toss small topwaters along the cattail-lined bank.

Regulations for bass are the same as at the WMA ponds -- two fish, with a 14-inch minimum. Except for live minnows, bait is legal.

Continue straight on Sierra Way past Lux Lane to a parking area near the power plant.

LAHONTAN RESERVOIR:
Classic Boat-Based Bassin’
For boat-based bass fishing in western Nevada, head to Lahontan Reservoir. This sprawling, 10,000-acre impoundment of the Carson River, with some 65 miles of shoreline, is the premier warmwater fishery in western Nevada.

And it gets better every year! That’s partly because most of the species found here were introduced fairly recently. White bass were planted in 1964, walleyes in 1980 and wipers in the early 1990s. Black bass have been present only since the mid-1990s, when the NDOW, the California Department of Fish and Game and the Great Basin Bassers club began cooperating to relocate largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass from Lake Shasta to Lahontan.

Today, the spots outnumber the largemouths and smallmouths, and the walleyes and wipers outnumber them all. But an unusually wet 2005-06 winter flooded shoreline willows, creating ideal spawning conditions for largemouths.

The benefits of that spawn should be felt for the next 10 years, according to Andy Scholz, owner of The Gilly Fishing Store in Sparks. Of course, Lahontan’s big walleye and giant wipers (a near-world-record 25.4-pounder was caught in 2007) aren’t exactly disappointing incidental catches.

Lahontan’s water is stained a near-opaque desert tan. But white and chrome lures, rather than the dark colors traditionally used in stained water, are the go-to colors here. All of the reservoir’s black bass species feed heavily on juvenile white bass.

Among the top producers are white Zoom Super Flukes, Carolina-rigged, drop-shotted or fished weightless.

Lahontan can also be reached from Reno via I-80 and U.S. 95 Alt. To get to the Silver Springs boat launch, turn east on Fir Avenue a few miles south of Silver Springs.

To get to the Northshore launch, turn east on U.S. 50 in Silver Springs and watch for the signed right turn.

The season is open year ‘round.