Lake level management and how to fish high water impounds explained.

Story and photography by Brian Hughes

Spring rains didn’t fool around in 2024! Rainfalls so far this year across much of the state have been up over the previous few years. The exception being the western portions of Texas. That extra rainfall has had an effect on lake levels, and by extension, the fishing. Let’s first examine where we came from, and where we are now.

As recently as a few short months ago, many of Texas’ lakes were woefully low, well below what they call “conservation pool,” or full pool as it were. Just to give a few examples, Eagle Mountain was eight feet low, Bridgeport 17 feet low, Lake Belton in May was holding only 60 percent of capacity. These and many, many other lakes were low due to lack of rainfall, while others like Fork and Sam Rayburn had been drawn down for repairs to the infrastructure.

As a side note, you may wonder why, if the state is under drought conditions, would they drop a lake to work on the dam or other infrastructure. It does seem counter-intuitive, but that’s the best time to do the work because you can manage the water level, which you could do in periods of plentiful rain. Plus, dam repairs are NOT something you want to wait around on to get done! Anyway, low water levels were becoming the norm across much of the state when we got to the spring of 2024.

And then the rains came! Relentless, torrential, use whatever word you like, we got a lot of rain. And it kept coming as well. Now we see the flooding and attendant high-water levels associated with the rains.

At this writing we’ve just had another storm hit the southern portion of the state around the Houston area, and they are experiencing flood waters in parts of that region. A few more examples: Belton is, 11 feet high, while Grapevine Lake is even higher at 18 feet above pool! Eagle Mountain has returned to normal pool, as has Lake Fork, while Lake Lavon is just under eight feet high, along with Ray Roberts Lake, and Big Sam at eight feet high as well.

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