Fishing Lake Mead, and where to eat after
A striped bass fishery 31 miles from the Strip, open all night and fishing all year, with cold-water trout below the dam. A guest guide from Smells Like Fish, ending at the three Boulder City tables worth the drive home.
Thirty-one miles from the Bellagio fountains there is a striped bass fishery that most people who live here have never stood next to. Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the country by capacity. Its west shore is a 52-minute drive from the Strip, it is open to fishing 24 hours a day, and it produces twelve months a year. Below the dam, the Colorado comes out of the bottom of the lake at about 55 degrees and holds stocked rainbow trout in July. This is the fishing half of a day out here. The eating half is at the end.
I write the guides on Smells Like Fish, a bait and tackle site, and I am a guest here. Top of Las Vegas asked for the water. They supplied the tables.
The day, in order
Leave the Strip in the dark. The striper bite at Hemenway is a dawn and dusk business, per the Nevada Department of Wildlife’s weekly report, and in summer the shore is unbearable by ten. Be on the rocks with anchovies on the bottom by first light, fish until the heat wins, then drive six miles up the hill to Boulder City for lunch. If you still have the itch in the afternoon, Willow Beach is 25 miles on from Boulder City, down in Black Canyon where the river runs cold all year and the trout do not care what month it is. Dinner is back in Boulder City on the way home.
What is in the water
Striped bass are the reason to come. NDOW lists them as most productive from May through December, on live shad if you can get it and store-bought anchovies if you cannot, and the September 1, 2026 report had shore anglers in the Hemenway area averaging four fish in the 2 to 4 pound range. The Park Service adds that the lake gives up “an occasional catch weighing in at over 40 pounds.” Chumming with anchovies and corn is legal here, which it is not on most water. Boat anglers work shad-colored jigs and swimbaits off the bottom at Government Wash in about 50 feet.
Largemouth and smallmouth bass hold on rock in the coves, May through September per NDOW, early and late in the day, on soft plastics. Channel catfish eat chicken liver, shrimp, or prepared bait on the bottom from April through September, and the shallow coves after dark are the program. That is the fish I would hand a beginner: one rod, one rig, no boat.
Rainbow trout are the surprise. The Willow Beach hatchery, run by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, stocks them straight into the pier and marina below the dam, and the same NDOW report had them running 12 to 16 inches. It is the only cold water within an hour of the city.
Where to fish from shore
- Hemenway Harbor, 31 miles: rocky points, an accessible pier, a four-lane launch ramp the Park Service lists as open, and a fish cleaning station. The spot the NDOW report keeps naming.
- Boulder Beach, 31 miles: sand and gradual depth, catfish and the odd striper, the place to bring small kids.
- 33 Hole overlook, 24 miles: the shortest drive on this list, three parking areas above walk-in striper water. The Review-Journal’s outdoors column points anglers here now that Boulder Harbor is closed.
- Willow Beach, Arizona, 49 miles: the trout pier, an open ramp, and 55-degree water in August.
Licences, fees, and the rule that catches visitors
Anyone 12 or older needs a licence. Nevada sells them online through NDOW, $18 for a nonresident day and $80 for a year ($9 and $40 for residents), and there is no separate trout stamp anymore; it is included. The rule that catches visitors is the state line, which runs down the middle of both lakes. From the Nevada shore, a Nevada licence is enough. From a boat, or from the Arizona shore at Willow Beach, Nevada’s code (NAC 502.285) says a Nevada licence needs the $3 Colorado River special use stamp added, or you carry an Arizona licence instead, which is valid anywhere on both lakes. Park entry is $25 per vehicle for seven days at the gate, and launching a boat adds a $16 seven-day vessel pass. Ramps move with the lake level. The Park Service’s Changing Lake Levels page is the list that counts, and its August 20 update has Hemenway, Callville Bay, and Temple Bar open, and Boulder Harbor, Government Wash, and Las Vegas Bay closed.
The gear side
Which rig for stripers off the rocks, what bait survives 105 degrees, how to keep anchovies from turning to paste in the cooler: that is my beat, and it does not belong on a restaurant site. The full Las Vegas fishing guide on Smells Like Fish has the map of every spot and ramp with drive times from the Strip, live weather and river conditions, the licence links for both states, the ramp table, and the tackle list.
Where to eat after
Boulder City is the road home from Hemenway. It is a real town with real kitchens and no casinos, which is a sentence you cannot write about anywhere else within an hour of the Strip. These three are on the Top of Las Vegas Boulder City list. The scores are theirs, not mine.
Sources. Nevada Department of Wildlife, Lake Mead water page and Fishing Report of September 1, 2026, and licence fees; Nevada Administrative Code 502.285; National Park Service, Lake Mead National Recreation Area fees, fishing, and Changing Lake Levels pages (August 20, 2026); U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Willow Beach National Fish Hatchery; Las Vegas Review-Journal, In the Outdoors. Drive distances computed on OpenStreetMap roads from the center of the Strip.
Ray Dodson writes for Smells Like Fish. Ray is the pen name of that site's research desk: every recommendation is built from documented angler consensus, state fish and wildlife guidance, and published testing, with sources named in every article. This piece was written for Top of Las Vegas.
