BY MIKE STEVENS
LAS VEGAS, NEV. – In this installment of the Power-Pole Lake Breakdown, WON BASS pro Todd Kline explores Lake Mead, the next venue on the WON BASS tournament trail taking place September 10-12, 2025 (register at WONBASSEVENTS.COM). Featuring steep banks, boulders, flats, bays and grassy areas and a wide variety of bass forage, often timesMead can cater to any bass angler’s tactical strengths. For this deep dive, Kline starts at the launch/weigh-in location of the WON BASS Lake Mead Open, Callville Bay.
1 VEGAS WASH VIA CALLVILLE BAY
“Coming out of Callville Bay we’re going to hug that right side and go out,” said Kline. “As you come out of here, you’re going to see a lot of coves along the right side and some are going to be steep, some are going to be flats that will have grass. To me, Vegas Wash is the most fertile place on the entire lake. There’s always water flowing, and there’s always
tons of bait as well. The challenge is, it’s got some of the biggest largemouth, but it’s just hard to get them to bite. Otherwise, that would be where everybody would go every year. It seems like someone can get them to bite one day, but for three days it’s not going to last… regardless, this is an area you definitely want to check out.”
2 THROUGH HEMENWAY TO BOULDER BASIN
“Coming out of Hemenway, it’s going to be almos tall vertical walls, and that’s where you’re going to headdown toward Hoover Dam. You can catch some fish in this area, but it’s not generally a sought-after area. Going across to the other side will bring you to Boulder Basin, and we’re going to hug the opposite side of Boulder Basin from Callville and go all the way up. As you’re passing that entire bank, you’re going to see all these little nooks and crannies. There’s a lot of them. You have to just go in and out of them before you find the magical ones. You could go through eight and on the ninth one, it’s the magic.
So you’ve got to pick and choose where you’re going to practice because unless you’re going up there three weeks prior, you’re not going to be able to see the entire lake. So keep your eyes and ears open, find out where you know anglers have done well in the past
and then try and hone in on those areas and break it down.
3 THE NARROWS
“When you get up to the narrows, again, you’re going to have areas where you can get
into the backs of some of these coves, and some will hold shad. They do have some
grass in the back, but for the most part, it’s really steep. This is an area where guys like
to throw jigs and different grub-style baits along those walls. Sometimes you can get some big smallmouth along there. Depending on the conditions, there are some largemouth there, too.”
4 TEMPLE BAR
“Temple Bar tends to be an area that’s a little more known as kind of the smallmouth zone. So, if you’re really trying to target smallmouth, I think the biggest smallmouth live along that whole Temple Bar stretch. You’re not going to generally see bigger largemouth. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still big bigger largemouth there, but a lot of times those big largemouth are coming from up in Overton, up in Gregg Basin, or back in the wash where I mentioned earlier. There is still an operating marina there at Temple Bar if you need facilities, gas, or a bite to eat.”
5 GREGG BASIN
“Once you go all the way through Temple, it turns the corner and starts to go back up, this is Gregg Basin. And Gregg Basin is similar to what we saw in the Overton Arm where it starts to shallow up and you’re going to start to see trees in the water, different brush and grass. Gregg and Overton are pretty fertile overall. All of these areas that I’m naming have played roles in the past and it’s just every year is different. One year it’s won up in Gregg, the next year it’s won in the in the Wash and then it’s won up in in Overton. So it’s like any lake it goes through cycles. You just got to get out there and find it.”
6 THE VIRGIN BASIN
“In the next area, it really starts to open up. A lot of times in the south, or where you just came from down by Calville or Boulder Basin, the winds might not be blowing at all.
Then when you get into the Virgin, it can already be blowing. We’re going to head up north first. North Point is the intersection where if you make a right, you’re going to go to Temple Bar. If you make a hard right, you’re going to go into Benelli. If you make a left, you’ll head
up into Overton (Arm), and and it’s going to be changed even from last year because the water is down a little bit. You’ve just got to find those areas (whether it was from the the runoff from the monsoons or whatever it is) where it’s fertile, where there’s life. On this left side, there’s a lot of, you know, cuts and coves, so again, get in there and find find the money. This is also an area where I’ve come across reefs on the way in, so come off pad early.”
7 OVERTON ARM
“All the way up into Overton you’ve got the old Echo Bay at the beginning of it. This area starts to get shallower and there’s a lot of brush in the water, trees, rocks, etc. Again, be real careful up in this area, there’s probably more landmines up in this area than probably anywhere else in the lake. In the back of this, in the Overton Arm is where the Virgin River comes in, as well as the Muddy. There’s still a pretty good chance that there’ll be water moving all the way in the back and you’ll see a big temperature change. You’ll see the water start to muddy up. On occasion in and around that break there can be fish, and it can be good, so you may want to get up there and check it out. Let’s jump to the other side, and we’re going to come back down the Overton Arm. Similar to the other side, there’s lot of cuts, a lot of opportunity there before heading down to Temple Bar.”
