Cold Carp in California

by

Dagur Árni Gudmundsson

It’s been an interesting start to the year here on the Central Coast of California weather-wise. First it started with almost apocalyptic levels of rain which not only flooded rivers and towns in the area, but almost quadrupled the lake level of my favorite carp fishery and filled other local lakes overnight, some to around 110% of their normal capacity since they couldn’t release water fast enough through the dam.

Following these biblical storm events, the temperatures dropped dramatically, with many frosted mornings and cold daytime temperatures. In the grand scheme of things, a freezing snap in the middle of January and February may not seem like an abnormal thing, but in an area where the temperatures are normally quite stable, and not that cold, these massive swings in temp have been interesting to watch. Add to that the fact that there’s snow pouring down in the hills around my town and fisheries (which I’ve never seen in all my time here), and it’s been a strange winter.

Despite this strange weather, the carp fishing in shallow waters has been on fire. I’ve never seen it this good this early. I landed my first carp on the flats of the year on January 2, and they’ve been consistently on the flats and tailing since then. It’s a testament to the carp’s adaptability that they’ve been taking advantage of these weather events to come up onto the flooded brush areas and gorging themselves on food. Whereas most other fish in the area, such as the spotted, largemouth, and smallmouth bass, have been tough to target, and seem to be hunkering down until the water levels and weather steadies out.

The carp are loading up the flats in such huge numbers you’d be easily forgiven for thinking it was mid-May. Except the main lake is holding at around 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and instead of shorts and sun shirt, I’m wearing waders and a fleece.

I figured out early in February that there was a bay with some flooded brush that gets a ton of sunlight in the afternoon. The wind pattern has been such that the warmer surface water gets pushed into the shallows after lunch, so from around 2:30pm to 4:30pm the area will suddenly fill up with tailing carp. This place is about a 12-mile hike round trip from my car, and only gets longer and longer the more the lake comes up. Measuring the water temperature differences gets real interesting here, as the main lake will be around 50 degrees, but then in the muddy flats it quickly gets up to 60, with the high being around 65 degrees in the late afternoon. The key has been looking for those shallow areas, preferably with muddy water, because muddy water warms faster than the clear water. If you find an area like that, AND where the wind will push the warmer surface current in the afternoon into the flats, you should find fish coming to feed in the shallows.

Aside from the crazy flats action, the carp have also been acting weirder than usual. One day in the middle of the coldest front so far, I was working the edges of a flat looking for largemouth and smallmouth bass with a big Alabama rig style streamer fly, basically a fly I designed to look like a school of fish. I’m working this juicy fly along a drop off and it gets hit hard, harder even than it is to find a reasonably priced house in California. I thought it was a huge bass, until I saw that gorgeous shade of gold and bronze pop out in the waves, and it turned out to be a decent sized carp that inhaled the school of fish. First time I’ve had that happen, and I can’t complain!

On another outing, I’m wading a flat that had been clear earlier that day, but once the carp started moving in, the water turned muddy real fast—so muddy in fact that I kept bumping into fish. There are few things as weirdly unnerving as bumping your legs into beefy carp in muddy water. They kick hard, and you can’t see them! The water was so muddy, and I was moving slowly enough that the normally spooky carp (which I couldn’t get within 50 feet of earlier in the morning) weren’t noticing me—until I kicked them as I scuttled along the bottom. And I’m not talking about one or two fish, I must have bumped into at least twenty fish. That same day I reached out my net to land a fish I hooked and hit the back of another carp, simultaneously getting hit in the back of the legs by two or three other carp, who probably thought they hit the jackpot with all the food I was stirring up. All this in late February following the coldest front I’ve ever experienced in the area. For context, I usually don’t see any carp on the flats at this lake until early to mid March depending on how warm the spring has been, but this year it has been since the first few days of January! Bizarre, sweet, and awesome.

These awesome fish always find a way to surprise you as an angler, and they keep you on your toes. No two seasons are even remotely similar, and the adaptability and the “go get them” spirit of these golden beauties never ceases to amaze me. What makes them such a fun target on the fly is how varied their behavior can be, and how they always seem to have a trick or six up their fins to throw you a curveball when chasing them. Moral of the story: don’t just sit at home waiting for the calendar or weather to tell you it’s time to go chase some golden ghosts, because you may just miss out on some of the best fishing of the year. If you need help taking advantage of the opportunities available or want to fish some of these waters I haunt, I happen to run a guiding service focusing on these fisheries. I’ve already had days that rival some of the best primetime fishing the past two years, and we’ve barely even gotten started! Can’t wait to see what the rest of the year has to offer.