Lake Mead a paradise for bass fishermen

WHEN we say that in the blue, expansive waters of Lake Mead you will find the best bass fishing in America, don't take our word for it. We are merely quoting an expert, who has fished in almost all the waters of America and knows whereof he speaks. But first, let's qualify our expert! He is Roy Cole, “the scout angler,” who has recently been put in charge of fishing operations and equipment for the Grand Canyon-Boulder Dam. Tours, Inc., concession operators at Lake Mead.

Cole started a career of fishing in the waters of his native state, Michigan.

Max Kegley, official photographer for the Arizona Highway Department, who takes grand pictures, is here having his picture taken. Max pulled this prize beauty out of Lake Mead one day on a picture-taking expedition. The photo shows that our photographer needs a shave and that Lake Mead bass are big bass.

Genial Roy Cole is smiling as he proudly displays a five-pound bass he just pulled from the lake. Fishing-expert Cole always gets 'em, but one of the shining features about Lake Mead is that the novice gets 'em, too. As a game fish, the bass is considered one of the best of all. Some 14-pounders have been caught at the lake.

Lake Mead, with its spectacular scenery, would be a fitting place for old Isaac Walton to drift and dream, and discourse on the wiles of angling. The lake, a miniature ocean, extends for 125 miles behind the massive shoulders of Boulder Dam, and in its clear, blue waters dwell myriads of bass. Lake Mead offers boundless opportunities for spectacular bass fishing in settings of perfect beauty.

He has fished for black bass, muscalonge, and Great Northern Pike in Wisconsin and Minnesota. He's fished in the mountain streams of Ontario, and spent two years in the Central American countries, battling by rod and reel fish that never saw an American stream.

In 1912 he began an extensive fishing survey throughout the United States, in pursuit of the brook, brown and rainbow trouts, the vicious muscalonge and the pikes. He has fished for salmon and steelheads in Washington and Oregon, and he has gone deep sea fishing at Coronado and Catalina Islands. He pulled tarpon and bonefish from Florida waters and bagged the big mouth bass that people like in the southern states.

Still qualifying as an amateur, he has fished for small mouth bass in the rivers and lakes of Minnesota, Kentucky, Tennesse and Missouri.

He could tell you fish stories that would make your hair stand on end.

Strange Shore Shapes at Sunset

No fisherman ever fished in more exhilarating surroundings than is offered at Lake Mead. The odd shaped rock on the left is The Mushroom, an eerie apparition clothed in the shadows of sunset. Fishermen in the motor boat are trolling, trying for the last big one before it is time to go home.

In April of 1938, Fishing Expert Cole was chosen as special field angling representative by several large fishing tackle manufacturers to cover the most popular bass lakes in the country, to give exhibitions in bait and fly casting and to talk fishing tackle.

He's as accurate in casting as a marksman is with a rifle. When we say he can dot an "i" at one hundred yards or more we may be exaggerating but you get the general idea.

His trip in 1938 started in southern California. He won the 1938 bass rodeo at Little Lake Murrary in San Diego County and fished in seven California bass lakes, showing the natives how to catch them.

He visited Phoenix and gave a casting exhibition at the Municipal Golf course (what a place for a fisherman) and fished for several weeks in Roosevelt, Apache and Canyon lakes. Then he went through the Ozarks, Indiana, Wisconsin and Lake Norris, the T. V. A. reservoir in Tennessee.

Last summer "The Scout Angler" visited Lake Mead for the first time, accompanied by Ray Bergman, angling editor for Outdoor Life. A five-day survey of Lake Mead convinced him that here are the finest bass fishing waters in America, and here he has made his home, eager to help the angling enthusiast who visits Boulder Dam Recreational Area, maintained by the National Park Service for the pleasure and enjoyment of all who may visit Boulder Dam and Lake Mead.

That briefly describes our fishing expert; so when we quote him don't shush us aside with the remark: "Fish story!" Incidentally, Angling Editor Bergman is just as enthusiastic about Lake Mead for bass fishing as Fishing Expert Cole; so if need be we can hurl authority after authority at you as easily as you can cast your plug into a sheltered cove on Lake Mead that practically drips with bass signs.

His duties at Lake Mead are rather complex. It is merely up to him to supply each and every inquirer with authentic information about where to fish on the lake, what to fish with, and when not to fish.

As bass fishermen know, bass do not bite all of the time. There is an occasional lull in their lives when something comes up that keeps them away from the juiciest morsel that was ever tied to the end of a fishline to tempt them by the most adroit fisherman. Cole will find out when they are not biting, because he knows the lake like a book now and if they won't rise to his lures, that means they are not in a rising mood and it would be just as well to stay home. For a body of water larger than Lake Erie it's handy to have an expert around.

Lake Mead, as you know, is that body of water formed when Boulder Dam was built to put the brakes on the Colo-rado river. Part of the lake is in Nevada, but the largest part is in Mojave county in northeastern Arizona, where you find the biggest bass and best fishing (we are not trying to sell Nevada short because we understand that Nevadans do most of their fishing in the Arizona waters of the lake; so we are not being unduly patriotic orinordinately selfish or plainly grasping.) The lake extends for about 125 miles behind Boulder Dam, some thirty miles of which it jostles its way up Grand Canyon. The shoreline is estimated at about 550 miles, but at only four places along the lake can you fish from shore, the land adjoining the lake is that abrupt and steep. Fishing by boat is the approved and accepted method.

Perfect Fishing in the Perfect Setting

For twenty-five miles Lake Mead pushes its leisure waters into the western vaults of Grand Canyon. Where the Lake and the Canyon hold hands, the bass fishermen must be careful lest the majestic beauty of his surroundings take his mind away from his reel and his rod and the exciting business of catching big bass.

The lake is now estimated to contain about 23,000,000 acre feet of water, between 8,000,000 and 9,000,000 feet less than brimming full capacity. You can readily understand that the lake is some puddle. Folks up at Boulder City say that the first big spring flood that comes charging down the Colorado will fill Lake Mead to capacity. Happy thought!

When the dam was built and Lake Mead started to form to the surprise and astonishment of all concerned large black bass soon made their appearance in the waters of the lake. By investigation it was found that long years ago bass had been planted in the Virgin River of Nevada and had gone neglected. The Virgin feeds into the lake and along came mature bass, and as if by magic the lake was well supplied with bass without planting. Subsequently by natural propagation and by the mil-