Lake Davis is an artificial lake in

Plumas County, California Plumas County () is a county located in the Sierra Nevada of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 19,790. The county seat is Quincy, and the only incorporated city is Portola. The largest comm ...

near the

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada ( ) is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primari ...

community of Portola. Its waters are impounded by Grizzly Valley Dam, which was completed in as part of the

California State Water Project The California State Water Project, commonly known as the SWP, is a state water management project in the U.S. state of California under the supervision of the California Department of Water Resources. The SWP is one of the largest public wat ...

. The lake is named for Lester T. Davis (1906–1952).

Hydrology

The lake discharges into Big Grizzly Creek, a tributary of the

Middle Fork Feather River The Middle Fork Feather River is a major river in Plumas and Butte Counties in the U.S. state of California. Nearly long, it drains about of the rugged northern Sierra Nevada range. Geography Its headwaters are located near Beckwourth in the ...

Grizzly Valley Dam

Grizzly Valley Dam is an earth-and-rock dam long and high, with of freeboard. The

California Department of Water Resources The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) is part of the California Natural Resources Agency and is responsible for the management and regulation of the State of California's water usage. The department was created in 1956 by Governor ...

manages the dam.

Recreation

Located in

Plumas National Forest Plumas National Forest is a 1,146,000-acre (464,000 ha) National forest (United States), United States national forest located in northern California at the northern terminus of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The Forest was named after i ...

, Lake Davis is the centerpiece of the Lake Davis Recreation Area, which supports boating, campground camping, cross-country skiing, fishing, hunting, mountain biking, picnicking, snowmobiling, swimming, and wildlife viewing.

Northern pike

During 1996-97 Lake Davis was in the national spotlight due to controversy over

northern pike The northern pike (''Esox lucius'') is a species of carnivorous fish of the genus ''Esox'' (pikes). They are commonly found in brackish water, moderately salty and fresh waters of the Northern Hemisphere (''i.e.'' holarctic in distribution). T ...

and the possibility of poisoning the lake. Following an explosion of the pike population, and the

California Department of Fish and Game The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), formerly known as the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG), is an American state agency under the California Natural Resources Agency. The Department of Fish and Wildlife manages ...

(DFG) decided to treat the reservoir with

rotenone Rotenone is an odorless, colorless, crystalline isoflavone. It occurs naturally in the seeds and stems of several plants, such as the jicama vine, and in the roots of several other members of the Fabaceae. It was the first-described member of the ...

, a naturally occurring poison deadly to gilled creatures. After the first attempt failed to eradicate the pike and the population rebounded, the DFG again utilized rotenone in September 2007, after lowering the water level. DFG's justification for the action was their concern that pike might escape the lake and enter the

Sacramento River The Sacramento River () is the principal river of Northern California in the United States and is the largest river in California. Rising in the Klamath Mountains, the river flows south for before reaching the Sacramento–San Joaquin River D ...

system, potentially harming native

anadromous Fish migration is mass relocation by fish from one area or body of water to another. Many types of fish migrate on a regular basis, on time scales ranging from daily to annually or longer, and over distances ranging from a few metres to thousa ...

fish species such as

steelhead Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the Fish migration#Classification, anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or Columbia River redband trout (''O. m. gairdneri'', also called redband steelhead). Steelhead are native to cold-wa ...

and

salmon Salmon (; : salmon) are any of several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the genera ''Salmo'' and ''Oncorhynchus'' of the family (biology), family Salmonidae, native ...

. The effort was controversial because pike are popular gamefish and considerable effort had already been spent on unsuccessful attempts to rid the lake of pike using explosives, nets, shocking, and poison. Since the 2007 treatment, there have been no confirmed cases of northern pike in the lake.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Davis Reservoirs in Plumas County, California Davis Davis 1966 establishments in California

Hydrology

Grizzly Valley Dam

Recreation

Northern pike

See also

References