Picture of the rising Colorado River beginning to refill Lake Buchanan
 It is all covered with water now...not deep water, but the water's back!

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Tonight as I write this our lake level is 1005.25 ft. msl.  Lake Buchanan is full to the brim at 1020., so we are only 14.75 feet low now.  I say “only”, because that means we have finally made it to the halfway point of recovering from the drought.  There is still a lot of lake out there that isn’t wet yet, but every day sees us getting more and more usable, livable, fishable water.

We could not ask for better timing.  Not only are the white bass needing to run up the river to spawn about now, but most of the other species will soon be spawning too.  The fresh rising water gives them enough room to get where they need to be to have a good spawn.  When their eggs hatch, the lake will be teaming with all kinds of hungry babies that need to find good stuff to eat and good places to hide.  That is where the timing part comes in.

When a lake has been dried up for a while, lots of vegetation grows up in the lake bottom.  Here we have seen willow trees, cottonwood trees, salt willow and all kinds of thick weeds and brush cover the lake bottom.  As the water rises, this vegetation will die and decompose releasing rich nutrients into the water.  This fuels the growth of algae, and jump starts the food chain in the lake.  It all begins with the algae and plankton, and in the fish eat fish world of a lake, ends up with lots of nice sized game fish that are a fisherman’s dream.  Just look at Falcon Lake and Lake Amistad.  They suffered prolonged drought, refilled and now we are seeing some exceptionally large bass coming from these lakes.

That is one of the advantages to lakes that are not constant level.  Every time a lake goes through the drought – flood cycle, it gets re-energized.  Constant level lakes may get some good fresh water inflow, but they still lack the growth of non-aquatic vegetation that provides food and cover for the smallest and most vulnerable lake inhabitants.

We still need more water to get the lake back to normal and get all the ramps and resorts back to 100%.  The encouraging part is that the ground is soaked and all the creeks are running and the tanks and potholes up on our watershed are already full.  We are just coming into the time of year when a night’s worth of busy thunderstorms can drop enough rain upstream to top us off.

Things are looking up and filling up around here!  If you want to keep an eye on the water levels at Lake Buchanan and all the rest of the Highland Lakes, check out
 HYPERLINK "http://www.lcra.org/water/conditions/river_report.html" http://www.lcra.org/water/conditions/river_report.html for up to date information.  It really is time to uncover the boat and change the line on your reels and get serious about getting you some fishing done!