Nestled in the rolling green hills west of Paso Robles lie two sister reservoirs, Nacimiento and San Antonio. While close in proximity, they each have very different characteristics. Both reservoirs are located in the Mediterranean climate of the Central Coast—except for the mid-summer heat, rarely does it get too hot or too cold at the lakes. Nacimiento is deep and narrow, with a steep shoreline with countless arms and creeks throughout its meandering shape that gives it its name, “The Dragon.” San Antonio, on the other hand, has huge areas of shallows and only has two inlets.
The fishing on each differs drastically due to these geographical differences. Nacimiento’s location on the east side of the Los Padres Mountain range means it picks up all the rain when storms come, and once the storms reach San Antonio, they’ve already dumped most of their precipitation. What this means for anglers is that it takes a lot more rain to raise the water level in San Antonio than in Nacimiento.
Fishing in each of the reservoirs is easily accessible. Both are easily fished from the shore, with San Antonio having more public shore access, and roads that lead down its various points and coves on its northern shoreline. Nacimiento, while having public access from the shore around the marina, is better fished from a boat. To get to the inlet of the lake is an 11 mile boat ride from the marina, but great fishing can be had from a float tube or kayak around the main body of the lake, easily accessible from the public marina. When Nacimiento’s water level drops, usually in late summer, fishing from shore becomes easier as the edges of the lake will be less steep, and easier to walk. Both are popular reservoirs for recreational boaters during the warmer months, Nacimiento especially, so plan accordingly during the late spring and summer. Both reservoirs are a part of the Salinas River watershed which historically had steelhead runs all the way up past Paso Robles, and Nacimiento River used to be one of the largest spawning tributaries of the river. Both dams were built in the 1960s to help flood control along the Salinas River and provide water for agriculture in the valley, reducing farmers’ dependence on groundwater extraction. Today, no water from the Salinas River makes it to the Pacific. (See author’s discussion of historic Salinas River in CAFF issue, Jan/ Feb 2021.)
LAKE SAN ANTONIO
To fish a reservoir like San Antonio, you have to embrace fluctuating water levels. Since the Central Coast doesn’t get any snowmelt runoff, what we get during the rainy season is what we get. San Antonio only receives a small amount of inflow from the river during the rain events. To put it into perspective, during the atmospheric river events of 2023, the Nacimiento feeding into the reservoir peaked at just over 42,000 cubic feet a second (cfs) At the same time, the San Antonio peaked at just over 10,000 cfs.
What this means for anglers is that the lake will look completely different every year. Whether it’s years of lower water levels due to the drought, or rising water levels flooding areas that haven’t had water over them in more than 20 years, it both looks and fishes differently every season.
Following the historic drought year lows of 2015-2016, when the reservoir was closed due to water levels dropping to 2% of lake capacity, largemouth and smallmouth bass populations took a big hit, but are beginning to return. The former striper population, though, never seemed to recover. Carp, a fish able to survive the toughest conditions, made it through the drought years, and when I started fishing the lake right after it opened up again in 2017, they were my target.
San Antonio is the perfect carp lake, with its miles and miles of shallow water, an abundant variety of food, and mild temperatures throughout the year. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more consistent carp fishery 12 months out of the year. Big midge hatches keep the fish feeding on dry flies all winter long, and once the lake reaches the 60-degree mark, there’s a good mix of tailing fish feeding on the bottom in shallow water and fish feeding on dry flies up top. The average size is good too, around 7 lbs, with fish over 20 lbs seen most days, though tricking one is a challenge.
The fluctuations in water level are the driving factor behind how the lake fishes each year. During low water years, the fish tend to be focused on clams when they’re tailing, and you’ll see the fish rising, or as we carp anglers call it, “clooping,” to midges and algae clumps. During the dry years, grasshoppers become a part of the menu as early as April and can be one of the main foods during fall fishing. Since the water level in the lake came up after the two wet winters we just experienced, the hoppers haven’t been as noticeable around the lake, so instead the carp have been feeding on worms, leeches, and beetles in all the flooded vegetation. Massive midge hatches throughout winter and spring keep the fish feeding on top year-round.
During the summer heat and algae blooms, you’ll get fish clooping to algae blobs on the surface in the mornings and afternoons. It’s like witnessing a major mayfly hatch on a trout stream, but instead of mayflies, its little algae blobs about a quarter of an inch wide blooming in the water, and the carp rise to eat them by the hundreds. Fly selection for these events is simple—a greenish, rough egg-style fly in roughly the same shape and size as an algae blob will work well.
The tailing carp in these wet winter years, with the fish rooting around on the bottom with their tails up, are eating worms, leeches, beetles, and damsel and dragonfly nymphs in the flooded vegetation. Flies imitating any of these food items in sizes 8-12 are a good starting point, and utilizing a hot spot in some of the patterns, such as brightly colored eyes or a brightly colored tail, will help them stand out in flooded grass and weeds. A good tip with worm-style tails is to thread a piece of foam onto the tail, which will help it stand up and act like a beacon to carp cruising looking for food.
San Antonio is also a popular crappie fishery known for its number and size of fish. During spring, these fish move up shallow into the coves and work their way in a very predictable pattern from the entrance of the coves into the back of the coves to spawn. This usually takes place around mid-April, and afterward, the spawn will migrate back to the entrance of the coves, where they’ll suspend over flooded trees and brush.
For fly anglers targeting these crappie, a floating line and a popper with a dropper anywhere from 2 feet to 6 feet down below the popper is a very effective and fun method. You can suspend the fly under the popper, like an indicator, but working the popper often brings in a bass or even a very fired-up crappie on it. Of course, you can also fish it with an indicator and “float and fly” method, but I find since the fish are in relatively shallow water, the popper method is a bit more exciting and productive since fish will hit the popper as well. These fish generally don’t get super selective, but worm-style flies from sizes #8-12, leeches in a similar size, or balanced baitfish patterns in sizes #6-10 work well.
LAKE NACIMIENTO
“The Dragon,” as referred to by locals, is a long, winding reservoir with countless arms and inlets throughout its course. Much like its neighbor San Antonio, Nacimiento has lived a few different lives as a fishery since the dam was completed creating it in 1958. In 1965, white bass were introduced to the lake. Nacimiento was chosen as a good location for stocking since it didn’t have any connection to the Delta. The record white bass for years was landed here by angler and lead singer for Three Dog Night, Cory Wells. Nacimiento, too, once had a thriving smallmouth bass population. However, in 1994, spotted bass were introduced. In a relatively short time, they outcompeted the smallmouth and hybridized with them to the point where getting a smallmouth at the lake became a rarity. Occasionally, anglers run into the hybrid of spotted bass and smallmouth, so-called “Meanmouths,” but they too are a rarity.
Today this is one of the most productive bass fisheries around, for white and spotted bass. During spring, the white bass make their annual spawning run up to the river inlet, entering the river to spawn in the thousands. Here, the “narrows” area of the lake, which is a winding canyon section around five miles long at the upper end of the lake, can produce fish every cast. Blind casting sinking lines around the entrances to creek mouths and along bluff walls can be very productive, but the real fun begins when the white bass start to boil, or bust, on baitfish, which usually starts around the end of April when the fish exit the river and feed heavily in the lake. Throughout the summer, keeping your eye open for fish busting on bait is paramount for success. Once you find a boil, you can stick with that school and reap days of up to 200 fish per angler. In general, when the bass are blowing up on bait, they aren’t too particular on flies—toss a shad-looking streamer on an intermediate or a floating line into the mix, strip fast, and have fun.
For the spotted bass, the fishing can be just as productive. Often these bass will school up with the white bass following the spawn, and in late summer into fall, you can find big groups of them mingling together, never knowing which one you’ll hook when you cast into the boils. One of my favorite times out at Nacimiento is early fall, late August through October when both of these fish are searching for bait along the deeper edges closer to the dam. From a boat or from the shore, you can look for these schools of fish being pushed into the shallows and see hundreds of shad throwing themselves onto dry land to escape being eaten by the voracious spotted and white bass. T his can be exhilarating fishing—running along the cliffs, spotting big boils of fish busting shad, tossing a white streamer into the mix, and ripping it fast through the feeding frenzy.
Big carp cruise here too. The state record of a 52 pound behemoth was landed here in 1968. When the lake level drops below 70%, flats appear around the lake in shallow areas. Look for the insides of the river and creek channel bends and keep your eye open for some spectacular sight fishing opportunities—a tailing carp in the clear waters of Nacimiento is a sight to behold. The main forage for carp here are crayfish, clams, and aquatic nymphs; but you’ll also find them feeding on midge hatches and debris in the surface film, especially in the mornings and evenings before boat activity disrupts the peace. A good way to target those fish is in a canoe or kayak, where you can silently sneak up near the schools of fish feeding on top and present your fly to them.
TARGETING THE RIVER
One of the more exciting aspects of Nacimiento for fly anglers is the river inlet. Getting to the river requires an hour-long boat ride up the 11-mile-long reservoir from the public access marina. Most anglers will park their boats along the beaches and gravel bars where the river enters the lake, then hike upstream and fish from foot. During good water years, the river flowing into the lake fills with white bass that run the crystal-clear waters to spawn. The lower mile or so of the river before it reaches the lake can be filled with fish to the point where you can’t see the bottom, and at times feels like a nature documentary. White bass, spotted bass, meanmouth, blue and channel catfish, and carp all make the river their home from mid-March through April and provide some fantastic fishing. The white bass in the river are simple to catch—throw a sink tip or a long 15-foot leader and a clouser or tungsten baitfish pattern, chartreuse over white, and strip fast. This technique will allow you to catch as many white bass as you want, with a few meanmouth and spotted bass in between.
For carp and catfish in the river, they’re there to eat the eggs from the white bass. The best way to target these fish is to get a higher vantage point, which is easy enough in some of the pools where the cliffs around the river provide a good perch to spot and stalk (just keep an eye out for rattlesnakes). Once you get high, use either trees or the cliffs themselves to hide your profile, and try to get as close to the fish as you can. Usually, you’ll see the carp feeding at the bottom of big rocks at the bottom, or along shelves in the rock formations. I fish a 15-foot leader with a tungsten fly sizes 10-14 that gets down fast and stays down near the bottom in the current. Any fly that resembles a white-ish egg cluster or a worm-style fly will work. The main difficulty is getting through the white bass, as they will eat anything that moves on the way down, which is why I opt for the heaviest flies I can for the size. These will cut through the schools of whites and get to the carp. I’d recommend only using one fly for this, and not a dropper setup, as I’ve run into trouble when hooking carp and having that dropper loose. The white bass will eat the dropper as you’re fighting the carp, likely pulling out the fly hooked to the carp. I’ve hooked a carp on a dropper rig, and by the time I get a fish in my net, the carp I hooked originally was replaced by two white bass!
Next time you’re visiting the wineries around Paso Robles, or the beaches around Pismo, don’t forget to bring your fly rod. These often overlooked fly fishing gems just happen to harbor some astonishingly fun fisheries. Bring your camera, you may want it.
