Fishing forecast for Las Vegas, NV

Lake Mead, outside Las Vegas, is the largest reservoir by volume in the United States, and its level sets the terms for every trip. Reclamation's records put the surface at 1,214 feet in January 2000 and about 1,039 feet in September 2026, and falling water forced the National Park Service to close the Callville Bay, Echo Bay, Temple Bar and South Cove launch ramps. Water level, not weather, decides where a Las Vegas angler can launch.

Best fishing times in Las Vegas this week

Majors run an hour either side of the moon crossing the meridian over Las Vegas, NV; minors, half an hour either side of moonrise and moonset. Where those widths come from: best fishing times and how we compute these times.

When these windows are not the right tool

Solunar theory is John Alden Knight's 1926 prediction; the ±60 and ±30 minute widths are convention, not calculation. The times are computed astronomy, the claim that fish feed inside them is not. The day rating follows moon phase — identical nationwide, so every city shows it the same. A moving front beats the moon: apps that read pressure.

Where to fish in Las Vegas

This page is built around Lake Mead, with Lake Mohave in reach — fresh water, about 40 minutes from the middle of Las Vegas.

Lake Mead is impounded behind Hoover Dam on the Colorado. Its surface elevation has fallen dramatically since 2000, and the practical consequence for anglers is that access points, not fish, are the limiting factor.

Lake Mohave, the reservoir behind Davis Dam just downstream of Hoover Dam, has two thermal zones. NDOW notes that its upper 20 miles lie within Black Canyon and stay cold all year from Hoover Dam's deep-water releases, while the remainder is warmer and more open, and its game fish include rainbow trout alongside striped, largemouth and smallmouth bass.

Quagga mussels were discovered in Lake Mead in January 2007. The National Park Service asks boaters, every time they leave the water, to remove visible mud, plants, fish or animals, eliminate water from equipment, and clean, drain and dry anything that came in contact with the lake.

The nearest grids we publish are Los Angeles, CA (368 km, Santa Monica Bay) and Phoenix, AZ (412 km, Lake Pleasant). Different water, and different minutes.

What you can catch in Las Vegas

State listings put these 6 fish in the water around Las Vegas. Plan around the peak, not the open season.

The famous white bathtub ring on the canyon walls marks previous water levels. It is a useful reminder that any map, ramp list or depth reference for this lake has a shelf life measured in a few years.

Summer pushes the fishing toward the edges of the day. NDOW advises fishing Lake Mead for largemouth bass during early morning and evening in their best months, May through September, and on Lake Mohave recommends striped bass in the early morning, evening, or at night from April through November.

Threadfin shad, introduced in 1954, are the forage fish that Mead's striped and largemouth bass depend on. A 2011 study by Reclamation, NDOW and UNLV scientists found that larval shad abundance had not changed after quagga mussels were discovered, and that early lower food-web trends showed no significant effect in Las Vegas Bay or Overton Arm.

Tackle sits outside a forecast page: start with how to catch striped bass.

Water temperature and season in Las Vegas

Air here swings 45.0 °F across the year, from 48.2 °F in December to 93.2 °F in July. No gauge measures water temperature here, so the chart below is air only.

Monthly climate for Las Vegas, NV. The air line is the NOAA NCEI climate normal for 1991–2020 — the thirty-year average of a calendar month, not the weather of any one year — measured at LAS VEGAS MCCARRAN AP, NV US (USW00023169), 11.1 km from the middle of town, with 27–28 of the thirty years behind each month. No gauge measures water temperature here, so this chart is air only. Water lags air by weeks and the lag grows with depth — a deep reservoir turns later than a shallow bay — so air is never a stand-in for a thermometer in the water. Read into this site on 2026-09-14.

The table shows average air only. The same airport's normals put a whole year's precipitation at 4.18 inches, a total that leaves the lake's level to water arriving down the Colorado rather than to weather in town. Where the air does matter is the working day: the normal July low sits 3.5 degrees above the normal April high, so a July dawn on Mead starts warmer than an April afternoon ends.

Sunrise, sunset and daylight in Las Vegas

The moon window moves daily; the sun does not. Plan a season against this block.

The longest day of 2026 is June 21, 14h 37m; the shortest, December 21, 9h 42m. The meridian passing drifts about 50 minutes later daily: a dawn window this week is an afternoon window in a fortnight.

Striped bass in Mead are landlocked and feed on threadfin shad, and they boil on the surface when the shad school tight. Those boils are the local event worth chasing and they are more about bait than about hour.

Trout are a year-round fishery below Hoover Dam: the upper 20 miles of Lake Mohave stay cold from the dam's deep releases, and Willow Beach is stocked with rainbow trout throughout the year. The community ponds in town get their trout only in the cooler months.

The Mojave gives this city a daily temperature swing of more than twenty degrees in every month from March through October, and almost no rain at all. In summer the practical fishing day on Mead collapses to the hours around dawn and after dark, while winter nights run cool. That inversion is why the local season chart looks upside down: spring and autumn are the strong windows, midsummer belongs to night fishing, and the trout water below Hoover Dam fishes in every season.

License and seasons in Nevada

Rules for Nevada come from Nevada Department of Wildlife, and the calculation behind the table is set out in how we compute these times.