Fresno Tailwater Fishing Access Site

Super happy to a found this campsite. There’s only two campsites here and one of them is a handicap, although a behemoth bus made their own campsite in the parking area down by the river, blocking my beautiful view👎

Decent cell service and I walked along the river following a game trail for about a mile and I also walked over to the two other campsites nearby which had multiple sites on top of each other. There were only three people there but everyone was running their generators. One of those has a fantastic view of the lake.

Sheriff came by on Saturday at noon for a quick drive-through, a local middle-aged guy brought his dinner every night and sat at the handicap campsite for about an hour enjoying nature. A handful of people showed up on Sunday to fish, and a couple people drove through to check it out but otherwise undisturbed.

Super easy access and Google maps took me directly to the campsite

I picked this place because the other two spots nearby are very large with lots of other people running their generators. There’s only two camping spots here a pull through underneath a bunch of cottonwoods and a handicap spot in the full sun. A behemoth bus came in shortly after I set up camp and parked in the roundabout down by the river which is not technically a camp spot but they got away with it, blocking my view.

Train stops at about 11 PM and starts up again at 6:30 AM

Rather busy with people coming and going to check it out, fish all day, locals eating their dinner at the picnic table at the other campsite every evening, and an amazing amount of traffic going over the bridge over the dam, mostly agricultural traffic like tractors and semi trucks. Otherwise was quiet pleasant and enjoyable. I took a walk along the riverbank following a game trail and checked out the other two campsites which have dumpsters

Pet toilet was clean and the picnic table and fire pit are in good shape.

Sheriff came by around noon the first day. I didn’t see anybody after that.

Read the other reviews on Campendium and got a bit confused, as we drove around the reservoir and it seemed pretty crowded, especially the designated camping spots. But we Finally figured out how to get to the Tailwaters.. take the first gravel road to your right BEFORE you get to the reservoir and it will take you to the base of the spillway. There are roughly three camping areas, nothing totally developed, and there is a pit toilet and small fishing pier. We scored a spot under a tree (shade) facing the river and hearing the rush of the water from the spillway - totally ideal! Cooled off nicely at night to sleep with all the windows open. Had the place to ourselves except for a couple of evening fisherman that spent a couple hours on the small pier. Only stayed one night as we are on a schedule, but if we had more time, we would have stayed longer - as this is an ideal 'away from it all' place. Note, we were there on a Sunday night so I imagine weekends would be more crowded with fishermen.