New Melones Reservoir

One of the benefits of your Man being a Professional Old School G is being called to extract, err, meet up in the most interesting of locations and under the most favourable of water logged and fish covered circumstances.
Note to The G: The ‘U’ in ‘SUV’ does NOT stand for U-​Boat. But hey, u saved the key fob so there’s that.
‘C’ is for Cayenne. ‘K’ is for Kayak. One float One don’t Foolio.
Grinding.

First visit to NM on 5÷1÷16. I WILL NOT BE BACK! Loved the lake size even though it’s 600,000 acre feet low. But, many other A-​hole boaters were absolutely rude. My boat was run into 3 times in 4 minutes. When I was departing for the first/​final time, Sheriff Deputy asking if I knew who’s vehicle that was parked illegally right there. There were only about 752 truck/​trailer combos out there. Like I’d know? Seriously? I should have said: «Yeah, that’s Bob’s truck», and left it at that. Nevertheless, there were a bunch of pencil pushers out there writing tickets by the dozens as fast as they could. I suppose I got the final laugh as many of you inconsiderate, self centered, drunk AF dillholes got fat fines. I’d suggest launch/​dock organization/​dispute deterrent/​DUI enforcement, but then that would make me a hater and you’d have something real to share on your page. Eff that place.

S and I came to this large manmade lake for different reasons. He was thinking about fishing and I was thinking about wildflowers and birds. There were houseboats and fishing boats on the lake. I did not see any wildflowers, during dry years they are hard to find. The birds must have been napping because I did not see any.
When I looked at the lake I could see how low the water level is. It’s sort of frightening to see how little water is in this lake. The hills are also dry. None of this seemed to keep people away, the campgrounds were all full.

This is my favorite boating lake to go to! I like the scenery and campground a lot! I am only giving it three stars for the way I was treated :(it was really disheartening. Soon as I paid for my campground I parked in my space and let the dogs out so that I could find their leashes to tether them up. But as I was rifling through my car for maybe 2 minutes, the ranger was already there to lay down the law. As I was saying sorry and that their leashes were what I was looking for, he drove off as I was talking. Rude much? Mind you. NO ONE ELSE WAS IN THE CAMP GROUND. So I find their tether and tether them up. A couple hours later here comes the ranger again. Saying he got reports that my dogs weren’t on leashes. The camp host clearly narced on me. I explained they have a 20ft tether and it might appear that they are unleashed but they actually are. The ranger said they must be on 6^th leashes. That’s pretty ridiculous to me. As I am stewing about that scenario assuming the camp host narced me out, the host opened his trailer and his unleashed dog comes jumping out and starts running all over the campground. While my dogs can’t even play catch. We had planned on leaving after dinner with our family. We packed everything up and hung out with our family in another camp site. Then here comes the ranger AGAIN to tell me that even though the camp ground is completely empty I couldn’t park in one of those spots. Even if it was just for a couple hours. There’s no friggin overflow parking anymore, so I was pretty much S.O.L. I love it there. But all the stupid rules were too much considering the campground was 100% empty.

Just to clarify, this review is for the lake and not for the nearby camp grounds.
The drive here is almost as beautiful as the lake itself, especially if you are driving from Columbia. The wild flowers edging around the lake are seriously a sight to be seen in the spring time. You never need to worry about overcrowding or water sport dangers here as this lake is not over ridden with people. It’s not the best if you don’t have a boat though, as there are not many places to set up camp and the area edging around the lake itself is semi steep.
My secret hiding spot is right underneath the bridge. You can park in a pull out and walk down maybe fifty feet, set up and watch all the happenings on the lake.

Went houseboating for a 3-​day weekend…
Pros– very uncrowded, perfect 74 degree water for swimming, some cool wildlife (eagles, rattlesnakes)
Cons — not particularly scenic

Nice campground! We come on Memorial Day weekend. First time we were rained out and didn’t use the boat but had a great time anyway. Clean bathrooms and plenty of rangers ;)

We just came back from a weekend of camping here. We had made reservations at the Big Oaks campsite site #116. The sites were clean and had a bench and a fire pit. There were trees and lots of dirt yay for camping! However I was a little upset cuz I’ve never been here so when making the reservation the site looked like it was by the water but its not. The sites are on higher elevation so you cant just walk to the water. Site 116 is 2 sites over by the bathroom which was good no smell or anything but there were no showers. The map also does not show that. We had to walk a bit down to use the showers. Theres only one shower stall in each the mens and womens bathroom. Coin operated which is fine 50 cents for 5 minutes 75 cents for 7.5 mins or $ 1 for 10 min and so on. The bathrooms have lots of toilet paper available however no seat covers or paper towels so bring some. Lots of bugs and the bathrooms can get dirty and messy at certain time of the day. Lots of fire ants at night but during the day just stupid flys. Cant be loud after 10pm however there was a group that was up still at 2am but didnt seem like there was reinforcement. There are rangers that drive around so I feel safe. Another bad thing was there is no longer a swim beach. I guess the map they give u when you check in say it does but when we drove over there it was no longer there. The lake has dried up and there is very low water levels. If you look at the lake you can sort of tell where the water used to be. The only way it looks like you could swim is if you have a boat or house boat so you can drive out to the lake. We didnt so we had to drive over to the marina by a dock and walk down. There is no designated swim area but we saw people swimming. We found a spot and walked down but there are tons of rock so it sucked. If you go bring water shoes. I had some so it wasnt so bad but its very dangerous because the rocks are sharp and you can hurt yourself or get your foot stuck in some rocks. Overall our camping trip was nice and relaxing. I would come here again but as a last resort.

Fabulous and little known New Melones is the product of damning the Stanislaus River over twenty years ago.
During Spring, it is known as a location displaying abundant wild flowers. In Summer, it’s a great destination for camping, boating, fishing, hiking and biking. There are time trials each week for you road cyclists.
All year round, fishermen flock here to test themselves and each other in catching that elusive BIG FISH. Most are catching and releasing, or catching and eating! There are many tournaments.
Pay the small use fee for either day or overnight use at this park cheerfully. It supports the nice facilities and keeps the riff raff out!
Wave to the friendly rangers! They are your friends, keeping you and your stuff safe.