Had a few hours to kill Saturday afternoon, and wanting to find some place where I could manage the wind somewhat, I decided to drive up and check out a few spots in the LBJ Grasslands. For the last year, one of my favorite spots up there has been Dan's Pond. Not the largest of the water bodies in the Grasslands, but one that seemed always willing to produce decent numbers of respectable sized LMB.

Funny, last year, while most of the other "popular" lakes/ponds up there were very low, DP was one that actually seemed to be fairing better than expected from the lack of rainfall. Unfortunately, since about last September, it seemed that every time I would go up there, the water level had receded some more. Now realize DP has never been a deep water "lake". I'm not sure that the deepest spot in there was ever much over 6 feet deep and you had to hunt for that one little "hole".

Well, although I wasn't planning on fishing DP on Saturday, I did want to go by there and see how it had fared over the winter and if the recent rains had any affect on the water levels. I wasn't expecting a whole lot, but when I turned the final curve on the dirt road leading to the pond I was shocked. Dan's Pond is now nothing more than "Dan's Mud Hole". The pic actually doesn't even do justice to just how bad it looks in person. There is not over a few inches of water left.



Other places I checked out also seem to be lower than they were last fall, but nothing this extreme.

The good news is I was able to get onto several crappie in one of the lakes while I was out there. the biggest being 13" ...

Wow! That's dreadful. Several Texas lakes are seeing unprecedented low water levels.

Very sad!

Man that is sad. I had really good luck fishing on Dan's pond. I fished a place this weekend and man if it doesn't get rain by mid summer we will loose another great fishery.

Next time u wanna get out the wind hit me up man

Gosh that's awful. Our big lakes are looking bad too - Raybob is about as low as I've ever seen it. Did you fish or go by Cottonwood or Black Creek? They were looking bad last summer.

[quote=benhood]Gosh that's awful. Our big lakes are looking bad too - Raybob is about as low as I've ever seen it. Did you fish or go by Cottonwood or Black Creek? They were looking bad last summer. [/qucote]

I was going to ask about Clear Lake?

Wow that is awful

Mam that's no good at all. Is that just from the drought? I remember someone saying something about a company pumping water out of one of those lakes.

We lost a 30 acre lake on my hunt lease this year... dry as a bone now. The lease manager said he's never seen that before in his 27 years on the ranch. We need some tropical storms to come up the gulf and sit on us a while.

From GV West water is slowly disappearing at a alarming rate, we need a wet spring.
Please cover those legs before your next photo shoot!

Both are really low ... at Cottonwood, the water line is probably 40 feet from the end of the boat ramp. I saw trucks parked along the bank on the dam side of the lake where I was catching fish this time last year. The small island just to the left of the ramp ... its not an island anymore.



I haven't been to Clear Lake since last fall, but it was very low then. The good thing about Clear is that it is deeper than most of the other lakes up there, so it should be a survivor in all but the worst of conditions.



Shaun, I think the lake you are thinking about is Rhodes, just outside of Alvord. I haven't fished that one since the NTKBF event year before last.

Heck, I was kinda proud ... you can only barely see any of the marks from my incisions, and the swelling is less than its been at any time since my accident.

But a good reminder to always use sun protection ... The sun was only out for less than an hour while I was fishing, and I still came home a little red.

Bickley pond dried up completely last summer so I'm sure it has little to no water now. Dan's Pond was that low this time last year but filled up after a few rains. Black Creek is as bad as I've ever seen it. Clear Lake was about 17-18 ft. deep at it's deepest point according to my fish finder a week or so ago. I have not been out to Rucker Pond or Chicken Lake in a while so I'm not sure how they are looking. What pond did you find the crappie? I caught the biggest crappie of my life at Chicken Lake early last May. It went close to 2 lbs. I put it back for someone else to enjoy.

How does Rhodes look?