Lake Davis is an artificial lake in Plumas County, California near the Sierra Nevada community of Portola. Its waters are impounded by Grizzly Valley Dam, which was completed in 1966 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 wate ...

. 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. Its headwaters are located near Beckwourth in the largest al ...

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 G ...

manages the dam.

Recreation

Located in

Plumas National Forest Plumas National Forest is a 1,146,000-acre (4,638 km2) United States National Forest located at the northern terminus of the Sierra Nevada, in northern California. The Forest was named after its primary watershed, the Rio de las Plumas, or Fe ...

, 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'' (the pikes). They are typical of brackish and fresh waters of the Northern Hemisphere (''i.e.'' holarctic in distribution). They are known simply as a p ...

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 a state agency under the California Natural Resources Agency. The Department of Fish and Wildlife manages and protec ...

(DFG) decided to treat the reservoir with

rotenone Rotenone is an odorless, colorless, crystalline isoflavone used as a broad-spectrum insecticide, piscicide, and pesticide. It occurs naturally in the seeds and stems of several plants, such as the jicama vine plant, and the roots of several mem ...

, 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 ( es, Río Sacramento) 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� ...

system, potentially harming native anadromous fish species such as

steelhead Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the common name of the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or redband trout (O. m. gairdneri). Steelhead are native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific basin in Northeast Asia and ...

and

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family Salmonidae, which are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic (genus ''Salmo'') and North Pacific (genus '' Oncorhy ...

. 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