Lake Nacimiento 3-15-11

This is my first post to this website so please bear with me...

Tuesday 3-15-11, I was fortunate enough to go out to Lake Nacimiento with two outstanding yak fishermen Dpshim & LingKing who I met on the PFIC website.  This was only my third time out kayak fishing and it was nice to paddle on the fresh water and give me an opportunity to get used to my equipment before the rockcod season opener.  My yak is a lightly used Ocean Kayak P15 that was nicely rigged then sold to me by a former NCKA member who has since moved out of the area.

We hit the water at dawn and paddled and paddled and paddled some more till we found some nice bassy lookin' structures and coves. Nacimiento is one gorgeous lake and I now know why its such a popular recreational area during the summer.   It was a beautiful day spent of the water.  The wind didn't pick up till late in the day, there were only a handful of other boats on the lake. It felt like we had the entire lake to ourselves.  In terms of the fishing, I did manage to catch a my first fish from my kayak, a white bass.  The rest of the fishing for the day was pretty slow for me.  At the end of the day I only got 2 smallish white bass. I will let Dpshim and Lingking comment about their catch.  Regardless of the slow fishing, It was nice to be out on the water with good company.

Hopefully this will be a first of many future posts and my next report will contain more stories of actually catching fish.  Thanks to you all you NCKA guys for all the extensive information you've posted on this website.  I have read and learned a lot from this site and now look forward to meeting more members OTW!

Good first report without pictures!

Thanks for the report FS. Yeah, Daniel and Ryan are super cool dudes to hang out with. Both of them are good fisherman too.

Jedmo

Congrats on the Two whites that lake is about to pop with the water temp just hitting 60.  Fished it yesterday the 16th and wish I would have hit it on the 15th but hit margie instead for a skunk but yesterday I got dinky little spot and 10 crappie and then on Sunday we had a get together and got a few more spots.

May hit naci again tomorrow or San Antonio and try for some smallies and to see if the Stripers are around yet someone has to do the dirty work.

Joel/Floatsam, I'd like to say welcome to the madness my brother!! Although it's only been your third time out on a yak, I've seen ya progress from taking dunks at Elkhorn to fishing the big seas for wsb to your very 1st fish from the yak

I got a text from FS, telling me that he had a week off from work and would like to go fishing with Ryan and me. I responded that I'd be happy to go with him, as long as it's on Tuesday Throughout the weekend I kept an eye on the weather forecast and swell predictions throughout Nor Cal. Unfortunately, most of Nor Cal was forecasted to rain with possible strong winds. Seeing that the weather would be better further south, I felt that it would be better to fish either San Antonio or Lake Naci. In the end, I felt that Lake Nacimiento would give Ryan and Joel (both new to freshwater yak angling) the best opportunity to hook onto some fish.

Knowing that I was fanatic about AOTY and that Lake Naci would not qualify for points, Ryan was surprised that I had decided this lake. My response was that it was much more important to me to have my friends catch their very first fish than to chase after some pts.

We arrived to Lake Naci in dense fog, but later in the day was greeted to warm t-shirt temperature of 71 degrees    By 7:00am, we started the LONG 1.5+ hr paddle to Las Tables. Water temp was at 56 degrees and got up to 62 degrees in certain coves by middle of the day. On our way out to Las Tables, Ryan hooked up with a white bass while trolling a sliver/black rapala. Soon after, Joel hooks up with his very first fish (another white bass) from the yak!! However, it was a bummer that those white bass did not put up a good fight/showing for my 2 friends. I was hoping that we would find some black bass that would put up better fights than the white bass. We did find them, but unfortunately I was the only 1 who caught them.

The bass were staging shallow, anywhere from 3' to 15'. I ended up catching 5 bass up to 15", all within 6 FOW on the drop-shot. Joel ended up with 2 white bass while Ryan ended the day with 4 white bass and 1 crappie.

Crazy part was that we didn't start paddling back until 6:45pm!!  Ryan was determined to land a spotted bass before we ended our outing. Since he wasn't getting any bites on soft plastic, he switched to nightcrawlers under a bobber in hopes to land just one bass. 4x the bobber went under, 4x Ryan hooked up, 4x he lost it on the battle 
By that time, I had to let Ryan know we needed to start paddling back since it would be dark by the time we get back to the marina.

As we started to paddle back, we noticed that there was a lone boat on the lake still. Sure enough the fishermen ran outta gas, and the battery to their trolling motor had died as well. They asked if we could find them someone to assist them in towing back. Or course we told them we would, but I was afraid the likelihood that we would find someone would be improbable. As we approached the marina, a ranger boat came speeding toward us. Afraid that he would not see us, we started to paddle frantically to the shore. However, he did spot us and turned on his siren lights. The ranger wasn't pleased at all to see 3 kayakers otw in the dark without any navigation lights. I informed him that he were caught off-guard with the time change, that we were paddling back all the way from from Las Tables creek, and that we were trying to assist a stranded boat.

The ranger was very surprised (almost to point of disbelief) to hear that we were paddling back from Las Tables lol! After hearing that there was a stranded boat, the ranger jetted off to find the stranded fishermen. Around 8:45pm we arrived to the marina safe ad sound 

I have to give both Ryan and Joel props for hanging in there with me for nearly 14hrs of fishing and paddling lol!! Looking forward to doing it again 

Joel's very 1st fish from the yak!!


1 of several bass I caught


Ryan continuing to fish for that bass as the sun is setting lol

Thanks for the report guys. And Welcome to the Madness, Joel! Good job on the bass. Sounds like the white bass are about to go off. Let me know if you guys ever need to borrow another yak...although, wait did you get a Prowler Joel?

Thanks for the more complete report Dan and for the pictures.  I made a special point to bring my camera on this outing to capture some nice images, but the old camera died on me while we were on the lake.  One of the big take home safety lessons about that trip was that not only do I need to worry about protecting myself from some self-inflicted stupidity, but I also need to worry about other vessels on the water.  As Dan stated, we weren't planning on being out on the water after sunset and we were lucky there wasn't a whole lot of boat traffic that day.  Next time Im gonna make sure I carry some flashlights with me.

Pat: It was nice meeting you at LP last month. Thanks for the offer to borrow one of your yaks.  I did in fact pick up a used prowler 15 from a former board member. The yak was present at the Bean Hollow shark attack back in '07 so hopefully it isn't cursed or anything like that.....

nice report. welcome

Welcome!