San Carlos Lake closes after massive fish kill, drought and dam releases

San Carlos Lake on the San Carlos Apache Reservation near Peridot went dark for anglers after a near-total fish kill turned the reservoir into a health hazard. The San Carlos Recreation and Wildlife Department closed the lake on June 5 and barred fishing, harvesting, possessing fish, and related recreation until further notice. The reservoir sits on the Gila River behind Coolidge Dam, and when full it is one of Arizona’s largest lakes, with about 158 miles of shoreline.

The trigger was a brutal mix of drought and dam releases. NASA said San Carlos Reservoir was less than 1% full on May 22, with only 389 acre-feet of water left, after the Gila River watershed snowpack dropped to about 2% of the 1991-2020 March median and April streamflow hit just 39% of normal. By June, required releases for downstream agriculture had drained supplies even more, leaving virtually no oxygen-rich habitat and setting off hypoxia that killed nearly all of the fish, including largemouth bass, black crappie, bluegill, channel catfish, flathead catfish, brown trout, and rainbow trout.

For anyone who had a San Carlos weekend planned, this is not a quick inconvenience. The closure is indefinite, and officials warned that decomposing fish may pose health and safety risks to people trying to fish or boat there. The lake has gone dry or near dry at least 20 times since it filled in 1930, with major fish kills also reported in 1976 and 2018. NASA noted that after the 1976 die-off, the ecosystem took five years to rebound, which is the best historical yardstick for how long this kind of disruption can hang on.

The cleanest reroute right now is Roper Lake State Park, 6 miles south of Safford, where fishing, boating, swimming, cabins, and campsites are still on the menu, along with largemouth bass, rainbow trout, and sunfish. Roosevelt Lake is another solid fallback, with Arizona Game and Fish calling it a 20,300-acre reservoir that generally has excellent largemouth bass and crappie fishing. Before you burn fuel toward any water in this dry stretch, check lake levels and current fishing conditions, because Arizona’s reservoirs can change fast when snowpack and streamflow come up this short.

San Carlos was once the big-water stop with miles of shoreline and a reputation for heavy fish. Right now it is a closed basin, a dead shoreline, and a reminder to reroute before the truck ever leaves the driveway.