7113 ‎(2)‎

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7113
• Author: La Rivers, I.
• Title: Fishes and Fisheries of Nevada.
• USFW Year: 1962.
• USFW - Doc Type: Fishes and Fisheries of Nevada.
• Copyright Material: YES

a of NEVADA
fiver System
RESERVOIR
w9entent Area)
%rthfill dam a little more than
!!Frantz, State Fishery Biologist,
the following data are taken-
had a maximum width of 1,900
ai greatest depth of about four
z height of 15 feet so that much
rwnt in 1956.
FISHES AND FISHERIES OF NEVADA 181
reservoir appears to have a sizable population of Blue-ill Sunfish, and
had blackbass in past years-whether any, of the latter still existed
could not be ascertained.
D-The Colorado River System
No sizable natural lakes exist in that part of Nevada drained by the
Colorado River (excluding the White River system) and its tributaries,
but man-made Lake Mead is the largest and one of the most spectacular
bodies of water in the State. Below it on the Colorado River, the newer
Lake Mohave is smaller and shallower, but with the same reservoir
characteristics in most ways.
These two reservoirs occupy the entire Colorado River channel from
a point well into Arizona to the site of Davis Darn, a distance of some
180 miles. The only "natural" river channel remaining to the State is
the short 20-mile stretch below Davis Dam, and because it is now the
outlet stream from an impoundment, rather than the free-wheeling
river, it is no longer characteristic of the original stream.
Just prior to this writing, the State Fish and Game Commission had
terminated two intensive fishery projects in this area, one on Lake
Mead" and the other on Lake Mohave, so that we have a substantial
body of data for these two waters.
(1) LAKE MEAD
(United States Governtaant)
(a) Historical and Descriptive
it Kunnyvide, Nye County. ;
vd Frantz.
of Fly, in extreme northeastern
mg the White River streambed,
attmerous large warm and cold
that the reservoir, at the points
as S.2 to 9.6; dissolved oxygen of
a front 16 to 332 ppIn; and biear-
empernture was 730 F. As ivould
%vuelation was dense in suitable
the north end and both sides of
401m, "were dense in the reservoir
stral section." In addition to the
or fishoyt (see White River), the
The magnificent backwater that is Lake Mead extends up the river
basin some 115 miles behind Hoover Dam and, at capacity, contains
32 million acre-feet of water under a surface area of 163,000 acres.
Constructed under the auspices of the United States Bureau of Recla-
mation, the dam was begun in 1931, dedicated in 1935, started power
production in 1936 and was completely filled by 1941. Its three and a
quarter million cubic yards of cement-located about 30 miles southeast
of Las Vegas in Black Cation-is arranged into a massive structure 726
feet high, 1,244 feet in crest length, 45 feet in crest thickness and 660
feet in bottom thickness.
Water rises behind the dam to a maximum height of 590 feet and
spreads out upstream to the north into the 4-mile wide Boulder Basin.
Above this, an eastering constriction of some 9 miles extent connects
!balder Basin with the slightly larger, 8-mile wide Virgin Basin into
whielt flows the wide Overton Arm from the north.
The reservoir then irregularly and gradually narrows upstream to
its nominal point of disappearance some 25 miles into northwestern
.Arizona. The total shoreline is sontething like 550 miles, and upper
portions of the lake are depositing silt in the amount of about 137,000
r)lngell-Johnson Project F-1-R, Lakes Mead and Mohave, 1951 to '105A,
I i ry Biologists At Jonez and Robert C. Sumner.