VIVA BASS VEGAS

Sitting smack bang in the middle of the Nevada Desert, Las Vegas has two huge demands. e fi rst is power (and lots of it for those insane lights!). e second is water to supply the millions of thirsty tourists and residents alike. Both demands are fulfi lled by the Hoover Dam which tames the fl ow of the Colorado River and provides hydroelectric power across the region. e damming of the river resulted in the formation of Lake Mead, America’s largest man-made freshwater lake, a vast cobalt blue oasis with over 700 miles of shoreline and dozens of species of fi sh.

Freshwater, yes, but by an unusual quirk of biology, there’s a fantastic chance for the visiting angler to catch striped bass. Like so many bass anglers, I have long dreamt of fi shing for these famous migratory saltwater game fi sh on the northeast Atlantic coast of the US. But the legendary striper runs of Cape Cod and Montauk Bay are generally the preserve of specialist angling trips and are rarely compatible with a general holiday abroad.

FIFTEEN MILLION

What is not widely known here about stripers though, is that, unlike our bass, they return to freshwater to spawn. Like salmon, their physiology is capable of adapting to freshwater, allowing them to enter the rivers to breed before returning to the open sea again. In the case of Lake Mead, stripers were in fact introduced during the 1950s to provide sports fi sherman with a worthy target species in the vast waterway. It was supposed that the stripers would not breed and would need restocking annually but, remarkably, over time they adapted to a permanent freshwater existence. Now, Lake Mead has an astonishing population of 15 million breeding stripers, and the beauty of this is that the serene, bleak, wilderness of Lake Mead is only 26 miles from the neon-riddled chaos of Las Vegas. For a visiting angler seeking a break from the in-your-face, relentless fun of Sin City, it truly is something you should not miss.

So how do you go about it? Well, fi rstly it’s imperative you get a day permit for the lake, and a Colorado River license stamp. Cost is minimal and both are available from the huge Bass Pro store south of the strip in Vegas – worth a trip in its own right!

NO FISH, NO PAY

en, crucially, you need a guide – this is not a safe DIY location. I fi shed with Mark Edison, owner/operator of Adventure In Angling. Mark runs a slick operation on a well-equipped skiff -style boat. With his great experience, Mark confi dently operates a ‘no fi sh, no pay’ policy; something he has only ever had to cough-up on twice in his 15 years as a guide.

Eff ective methods include hard and soft lure fi shing, fl y fi shing and drifting live bait. On my day out with Mark, the sounder showed the readfi n Shad that the bass feed on were sitting well down in 30-40ft of water. So, for me, it was a case of employing the same tactics as I would drifting live sandeel over the Shambles Bank off Weymouth, but using super-light rods, 8lb mono, perhaps a mere three-quarters of an ounce of lead on a Carolina rig, and a small 3-4 inch Shad lightly 

VIVA BASS VEGAS

Joe Walker takes a break from the Las Vegas blackjack tables and takes a gamble on catching a striped bass – in the Nevada Desert

Filling the livebait tank

Drifting a livebait on light tackle produced plenty of bites Shad make an excellent bait for hungry stripers

hooked through the nose on a 2/0 circle hook. Mark gathers the live bait by expert use of a cast net, ensuring it can’t get much fresher. e fi sh were popped into a nicely aerated live bait tank in the middle of the boat and in 45 minutes, with the herons, ospreys, terns and turkey vultures looking enviously on, we had enough to start fi shing.

In February, the bays of Lake Mead play host to fast moving shoals of voracious schoolies in the 2-6lb range. Having recently spawned, and not fed for some time, the stripers are hungry and aggressive. Indeed Mark’s ‘no fi sh, no pay’ guarantee was cancelled out on the very fi rst drop! Under his tuition, I lowered my shad at a slow controlled rate, touched bottom, and just as I would off the coast of Dorset, lifted the bait clear by a couple of feet as the boat started a slow drift across a set of peaks and ledges. Within no more than a minute there was a bold, robust, yank on the line. I immediately dropped the rod tip for a second or two to give the fi sh time to ingest its meal, before lifting into a solid weight and an immediate, savage, run against the clutch. It has to be said, these stripers really do show up their European cousins when it comes to pound for pound fi ght. After an energetic tussle, mark expertly netted my fi rst ever striper, a lean fi sh

Monsters up to 40lb lurk in the depths of Lake Mead

Skipper Mark Edison provides advice One of the many schoolies caught during the trip

of about 4lb, adorned with a splendid array of dark pewter lateral stripes along its flanks, but in every other way identical to the bass we all know and love.

It’s always a fantastic feeling, ticking off a ‘first’ as an angler. at said, I thoroughly enjoyed the second too! And the third, and the fish just kept coming, one after another, from 2-5lb, and a couple over 6lb as Mark looked on, smiling like a proud father. ere are some really big stripers in the lake, with many fish over 20lb, and leviathans to over 40lb coming to the net from the deeper waters, but I have to say, on the light rods, the schoolies provided huge fun for hours and it was a joy to behold such sport in this amazing and enigmatic location in the heart of the Nevada Desert.

Eventually the shoals moved on and the amazing run petered out. We explored inlets for a further couple of hours as the shadows lengthened and the sinking sun painted the mars-like landscape in ever-changing shades of red, pink, and bleached bone white. I winkled out a couple more decent fish, and frustratingly lost a really big beastie which dropped the hook after a searing run. But even that was not enough to wipe the smile off my face.

As a break from the madness of Las Vegas this huge oasis was, for a bass angler, an utter joy, and for any sea angler finding himself on course for a visit to Las Vegas, I can’t recommend a day out on majestic Lake Mead highly enough. e odds of exciting fishing, catching feisty stripers, are far better than those on any of the casino craps tables, I can tell you that! n