The Lower Nacimiento River is not a "steelhead stream".
The Lower Nacimiento River is a small, mostly locally-used fishery in Southern Monterey County. Chances are you've never fished there, or even know about it. The "Naci" is a tributary of the Salinas River, which flows north (which is rare on this continent) and is largely consumed by irrigation before it reaches the ocean at Monterey Bay. Many anglers are aware of Lake Nacimiento; this is the tailwater that flows from it. The entire fishable length is located on the Camp Roberts Army Base, in Bradley, California. If you've driven through Camp Roberts on Highway 101 at the Monterey/SLO County border, you've passed over the Naci River near the spot where it terminates into the Salinas River. Almost everything upstream from that bridge, five or six miles west to the Nacimiento Dam, is the river we're talking about here.
Most anglers new to the Naci, when they first see the water, will probably wonder "when does the water clear up?" The answer is "it doesn't!" The water coming out of the Naci dam, for some reason, is "a little off-color", but it's all fine, because hungry stocker rainbow trout are in there! This is nymph and streamer country, where you'll probably do better with a sink-tip line than a delicate cast for risers. There have been extremely rare dry-fly days for us, which I suppose makes them all the more sweet. It's rare to see other fly anglers here because it's Powerbait water, but there are a handful of us who fly fish the Naci because it's our only local water. If you check the map, you'll see that there isn't another fishery-quality river within many miles, so the Naci is all we've got!
You should also know that any and all Naci Fishing is only available through the Camp Roberts Fishing Program, because that's the only way you can legally get on the army base, and access the river. All anglers buy a special $15 permit at the Camp Roberts DFG shack, are required to check in and out when using the fishery, and must show all harvested fish to DFG personnel. Some catch-and-release data is also collected. Fishing is open on weekends through fishing season, unless some army training exercise prevents it, which is rare.
Naci fishing season runs April to October. DFG stocks the river every three or four weeks. You can usually tell when it's been recently stocked and when it's been a while, because the bait fishers around here are good. But if you hit it right, you can find enough cooperative trout to make it a call-your-buddy day. Flows generally run pretty fast in the early season and slow down later, and vary, but it's always pretty fishable during the summer. The outflow into the Salinas River is mostly consumed in the Salinas Valley by agriculture during the summer, and the outflow is based upon those needs, plus it prevents saltwater intrusion in farmland near the river's terminus at Monterey Bay (100+ road miles downstream from the Naci), where the river lagoon rarely breaches naturally anymore. The Salinas River is sometimes called the "Upside Down River" because it commonly flows underground.
In fall, the Naci flow is cut to the current minimum release, 25 CFS, which can be characterized in the fishery as warm, placid pools connected by miles of riffles six feet wide and two inches deep. Not very fishable, even for the Powerbait guys. And not very hospitable to cold-water salmonids. During steelhead migration time, it's commonplace for the Salinas river to dry up completely before it gets to the ocean, despite the minimum flows coming down the Naci. The faucet is turned back on in the spring, after the Naci Reservoir has (hopefully) refilled, and away we go again, ready for the stocking truck!
What I'm trying to illustrate here, is that the Naci does not have adequate flows during the winter steelhead migration season, lacks suitable spawning and rearing habitat, and in most years has no access to the ocean during steelhead-moving time. It is not a "steelhead stream". In an unusually wet year, is it conceivable that a steelhead could swim all the way up into the Naci? Absolutely! In 1900, there was a respectable run of South Central Steelhead in the Nacimiento and Salinas Rivers. Unfortunately, 3 dams and thirsty crops sprung up after that, which put a serious damper on the steelhead's ability to migrate to their spawning areas which were disappearing as fast as the water. There are anecdotal accounts of adult steelhead in the Salinas, but we've never seen one or caught one in the Naci, or know anybody who has, or know someone who knows somebody else who has. Believe this: we'd love to catch a steelie in the Naci! But when we want to fish for steelhead, we head elsewhere.
The stocking ban states that stocking cannot occur in waters where it has been proven that wild steelhead are affected. As luck would have it, a scientific study was performed in 2007 to determine if those stockers in the Naci were having any affect on any steelies that may be in there. The NMFS conducted the study over a four year period, inspecting all trout harvested in the Naci during that time, singling out dozens that did not resemble the stockers being caught. These steelhead candidates were analyzed scientifically. If you want specifics, I've explained the study results as I see them in earlier blog posts (scroll down, you'll find them). Bottom line: 14,330 trout caught, 0 steelhead adults, 3 steelhead hybrids (all 3 caught by one angler on different outings, hmm...)
Remember, this was EVERY trout harvested for a four year span. The Lower Nacimiento River is not a "steelhead stream" simply because a federal agency claims it is, especially since that agency's own data suggests the opposite.
Home Water doesn't have to be a large delta, pristine river or a Sierra stream. We realize that we're lucky to have the Naci, given the summer geography around here: dry, hot, scrubby oaks and hills. The Naci is a wonderful tailwater, with reliable summer flows that provide an ideal put and take fishery, the only one near SLO or Southern Monterey County. Fly fishing is perfectly acceptable in a put-and-take fishery as far as we're concerned! If you see an unfamiliar fly angler here, it might as well be your first cousin you haven't seen in 10 years, because you'll probably spend a while comparing notes.
A journey to those "better waters" in the Sierra or Up North requires days instead of hours, so they're special trips, only a couple times a season. Home Water is different: it allows us to fulfill our need for the water and flyrod (or baitrod, or spinning rod) a few times a month if we're lucky, just for a few hours or so, but enough to ease our thoughts and stresses without venturing far from home. If you have some Home Water yourself, you don't need it explained to you.
Anglers with no Home Water have my sincerest sympathy. Anglers who have multiple choices of Home Water have my deepest envy! You are the luckiest of us all, you buggahs! Now imagine that all your Home Water was taken away from you for reasons that were wrong and unjust. What would you do? You'd get mad, right? Then you'd fight for what you believed in! That's what we're trying to do here. We are a small group of anglers who don't have the luxury of a large lobbying voice. We're trying to be as noisy as we can in the only ways we know how, because in our heart of hearts we believe we have a legitimate argument. We are not a bunch of "anti-steelhead" kooks.
Some well-intentioned anglers support cessation of stocking in the Naci because they think it is a "coastal stream" or a "steelhead stream". Hopefully this primer helps to clear that up.
Cessation of stocking will effectively kill the Lower Nacimiento Fishery. A catch-and-release regulation with no stocking will achieve the same result. We believe the evidence does not justify the closure. If you agree, please help make our voices louder.
