Squaw Creek

I’m gonna go do donuts on WAWI’s spots.

Is it open.

Not yet.

Lol, I have no spots. Sometimes it's how not where. And we were never that good on that lake anyway......

Y’all make sure to wear your jersey and turn your headlights off.

I may put up a reminder of how to act at ramp prior to.......

Time for the floater tourney trails to hit the Squaw

And the tears will flow freely once again when all the drama starts over who owns what spots......



I guess since its been closed a good bit no one owns any spots and everyone will have to claim them all over again....

Can't wait to see the people who claim to hate it show up and fish it regularly.

I hope to take my 8 year old out there. My 19 year old just left for college and he learned how to bass fish on Squaw Creek. I have to break in my new partner there. Great place to learn how to bass fish

I've never been....saw that it was full

Imagine how hot that water is gonna be. No need to rush out there opening weekend

Stupid will be on display like never seen before on those first few Saturdays once it cools off a little.

They need to limit it to 50 boats a day.

Heck yeah! I moved in 2020 and I'm only 45 minutes from the park now. I'll be out there every Friday!

Stupid is always on display.

I feel like I am a pretty laidback guy. I also have been around Fork a lot and am used to crowds and egos. I will say when Squaw was last open it would take a lot for me to not get pissed off at being cut off etc. The egos sometimes out there are next level...

What is the proper way to mark your spots? Do I need to mark it with a flag or something?

May have to try this lake out. Where’s is it located?

Opening day is already booked....ahahhaha

I'll be waiting for December time frame. That's when I get the need to throw a buzzbait in the winter.

https://www.luminant.com/squaw-creek-park/

I just want to know who will hold the first tournament on squaw.

Cool.....Going to do a meat haul for Tilapia on crappie gear.... That was crazy fun and dang good eating!.

Dang! Those tilapia are bigguns! And good eating too!

just night crawlers under a bobber or what?

Ive always caught them on cranks out there as a by catch but thinking about going out and actually targeting them one day for fun

Just used a drop shot rig with the fake powerbait worms in the little jar.

Thats what I have always done. Filled up a 100ct cooler in about 3 hours.... Cleaning them is a different story. Rib bones are about the size of #2 pencils.

Are yaks allowed.

Who cares! Will never fish like it did back before 9/11.

I care

Dang man...you're right on top of it. AHAHAHAHAH

I propose that whenever you do the reservations you pay the $30.00 fee at that time. Might cut down on people reserving and not showing.

I agree, non refundable within 7 days of reservation.

But I know theyre already doing what they can to open the park back up for public use and keep costs low as the $30 fee is barely off setting the labor costs from comments ive seen from a worker there.

I had ask about taking money online but accounting said there was no way they could process it. It would be faster getting everyone in for sure. Still trying to figure out how to deal with all the no shows. I think the having to wait at the side until all the reservations holders get in first will reduce the number who do not bother to make reservations and hold up the line while the sheet is being filled out. Also pay attention to the blanks. Google fill must not be right because emails are where phone numbers should be and phone numbers are missing on several of the first 150. They will now have to ask for it when they show up. Also first and last names are swapped. If they can not find your last name have them try your first name, you may have put them in backwards.

Heard they are raising the fee to at least $100, inflation and all

Don't be that way Douglas
I had to laugh that I posted a helpful heads up in the Open Freshwater Discussion hours before and your dancing bananas post doubled it in views in only a few minutes.

Or a night crawler, or almost any bait but ya a “power drop shot” keeping the bait around 12” off the bottom will catch you plenty as long as you’re where they are(which can be everywhere). Bobber will work as long as they’re kinda shallow. Caught plenty “here and there” on lures(crankbait mostly) but not the way to “target” them. Take ALL you want. Only “bait” that works better is a cast net! You can load the boat to the sinking point with a cast net. Somervell Co Volunteer Fireman for a long time, ask me how I know!

I heard rumors that they shut the plant down months ago.

38 miles south of Waco I believe!

Would that be a reason as to why some people didnt get email confirmations yet? I know I put my info in but never got an email, a buddy of mine put in a reservation as well 15 mins after me and got a confirmation email.

i just talking about those that reserve every weekend, may not even show up half the time, but they reserved it just in case. PAY $30 registration fee.

So the email thing has had some issues long term and a separate issue from this morning. First check your spam folder. Long term problem is that the program that does the reservation part generates emails from a IP address that has been around a long time. We found before that people with @AOL.com and some @ATT emails were being blocked as spam at some level the end user could not undo because of this IP. This morning when it did not come up he accidently opened Sept for a few minutes. When he closed Sept it caused the reservations made in that window to show up as pending and did not send the email. We have them on the sheet and this one day only if you PM me I will check it for you.

For those that did get an email there is a link in there that lets you cancel your reservation. As soon as you do it allows someone else to schedule it on the calendar. In the craziness of this morning someone had 12 reservations for the 1st. He did not think it was working then all the came at once. I had him cancel them from the emails and they were taken so fast that I never saw them show up while refreshing as fast as I could. When I logged in sure enough they were all booked again by others. Please cancel your reservations once your know for sure you are not going to get to go. Also do not keep trying again and again. There were over 20 people with at least 2 spots.

Interesting on the registration part. I noticed I never got an email confirming but it confirmed after submission. Oh well, will show up and pray it’s still on there I guess

The boat that is there first owns the spot. Pretty simple

Blayne since you use your real name on here I can tell you your reservation is good. I tried to resend email let me know if it worked.

150 is way too many boats.

Maybe 75 a day, still too many, but at least manageable

Yep! That worked. You’re the man 💪🏼

"150 is way too many boats"

Guessing you are still pot stirring but I will play along. So we started at 100 and kept increasing it until we started getting 100 boats to show up with all of the no shows. I am assuming at first most people will show and it will be crowded but as they settled into old habits they will make reservation that they will not show up for and we will drop back down to a 100 or so average on the days it books at 150. Set up a poll and if the majority of the users on here would rather not get the chance to go as often but have fewer boats out there when they do then I will take your proposal to management. Might have to add one reservation per weekend or something to keep it fair. It is much easier for us the fewer we have on the lake in the event we have to call all of you. Still failing at making everyone happy.

We had a couple of times where small clubs that had a tournament out there made a bunch of fake reservations so they would have less competition on the water. Some of the stuff that goes on just amazes me. The only times I know we exceeded the 150 was a High school tournament where we had closed the park and when several smaller clubs decided to have tournaments the same day as bigger trails did. That was when we started to allow trails like TTO to reserve the day. I know some want us to ban tournaments and other want the tournaments to have the lake to themselves.

Since we are stirring things up what is everyone's opinion on fog delays.
1. Hold you inside the buoys.
2. Hold you from launching.
3. Let you go no matter what the conditions. You are responsible adults who can control yourselves and not run on pad when you cannot see past your trolling motor.

Fog should be idle only and anyone caught operating above that speed should be perm-banned as a safety risk.



Less boats means less people to manage. I am being honest and not pot stirring, 150 is too many on a lake that size.

100 is probably a more workable number.

I fished the lake frequently before the closure in '01, but rarely now. I will likely make a trip or two this winter.


JWalls

Thanks for the info!

150 is a lot of that small of a lake

Anyone know whats up with the registrations? Doesn't seem to be working?

I was being honest also. Since I can not figure out how to stop the no shows we did just raise it until the average was 100 who showed up. We were only getting 60 a lot of the time when we were at 100 and we were getting lots of calls like "my club has a tournament and I could not get in please help" . When we raised it most who were willing to get up at midnight had a good chance to get in. I may have made that worse by moving the time to 7:00 am. Not sure how to pull off perm ban. People are like companies that go bankrupt. They just show up with new name, email and phone number. If I could work that out after your 3rd no show you would not be allowed to make reservations any longer. I guess we will see how the first few weeks go and adjust accordingly. We have reduce the staff so no one will be directing parking and most likely not holding boats back so it may be chaos.

I love chaos.

Is the times still the same, be out of the property by 4pm? Also, idle only during fog is the best thing to do. Especially when there is a tourny. I have been held in the bouys until 11am one day and didn't have much time to fish. So I say, idle only on fog days.

I love the idle-only, we're adults rule.

As to the permanent ban, you would ban the individual. You check ID when entering the park, right? If they put a different name on the registration, they won't get past your eyes at the gate.

No shows, that's a bit more difficult. But, make it easy to cancel and hopefully that'll help!

Hey, even better. You ban the boat (by registration numbers)... a little tough if it is sold, tho.

So the webguy could not figure out how to move the start time for reservations to 7:00am but he figured out how to make the calendar disappear until 7:00 the next day. I thought he was going to let it go until 11:00 pm or so but turned out it is set to disappear at 5:00pm for now. He will be back at work after labor day and I will get him to moved it back some. Hopefully it will show back up in the morning at 7:00 ready for Oct 2nd.

Planning on off the water by 3:30 out of the park by 4. Might have to perma ban those who make the park employees stay over after their day is done because they would not stop fishing and get off the lake.

EXACTLY...!!! that was easy.

We quit checking ids when we stopped giving the local county discounts. We were only verifying address to make sure you lived where you said. Slowed everything down to much so everyone pays $30 now. We changed Driver license number to license plate of tow vehicle and it is much faster.

We do not record Boat TX numbers so would have to change that. That would also be the only way people could report the idiots on the water who almost hit them.

Canceling is pretty easy if you get the emails, just click the link and hit cancel. Easier than unsubscribing from spam.

Probably, a long shot...but opening on Monday again would be awesome...

I pm'd you. Also,there are a few people who registered for their self being the driver and they registered for their passenger as well

Not going to happen. It was very close to being Fri-Sat only. When we did the Thurs- Mon we had 8 people to split the week. 4 worked Thursdays and 4 Monday. Only 3 guys now.

Is Theresa, brad, and Billy still working it?

Boaters do not need to register their passengers so if they got the email they can cancel those. If not pm me the names and I will call them then cancel. You would not believe it but we have had someone try to cancel someone else's reservation.

Understandable....sure was nice on Mondays...glad to have access again, thanks to everyone who made it possible!!

Billy is back and Frog if you remember him from before. Teresa is having some health issue and will not be able to return to work but you may see her from time to time feeding those cats.

We will be praying for Theresa 🙏🏿

I say get rid of the reservations all together, show up and get in line if you make it you make it. This will eliminate Tourneys and no shows.

Maybe another way around is to bump it to $40.00, due at registration time, Non-Refundable.

This ^^^^ is a way better idea than this:
Actually the NON-REFUNDABLE part without a rate increase would probably fix the problem itself. Certainly the higher price will cause the person making the reservation to have “more skin in the game” but I also hate to see the price get out of control either.

I tried to get a reservation this morning right after 7a for OCT 2. It showed still available/open. I filled in everything and hit submit and it just went back to the top of the page. I waited a couple minutes and didn't see an email confirmation so I submitted again and it did the same thing. Check email again around 8 and still no confirmations and it shows booked up for the OCT 2 now. I assume I did NOT get a reservation. I am glad it is reopening and appreciate the headaches the organizers are dealing with though to allow it to reopen. I will try again on another day.

So far I am mostly hearing 100 boats, nonrefundable $40 reservation, idle only during fog. Tournaments seem a toss up.

I would like to ask to not start weigh in Tournaments until the water cools down. It will still be summer time water temps(over 100 at discharge and 90 at intake currently) out there in Oct. It would be nice to focus on the shallow bass and not rip the deep guys up until there is less of a temperature stratification. No one is sure why the larger bass population has disappeared out there but catching them in hot surface water when they are 30 -50 ft down that can not be good for them. We really considered waiting until November to open to let the bass that have been deep come up shallow and get to feed some before feeling fishing pressure.

Also a consideration would be 3 bass limits instead of 5. With a 50 boat tournament that is 100 bass that did not have to spend all day in a livewell.

PM me about reservations to keep people from having to check what latest post is about for them.

There are deep bass there year round. I've caught them in 30'-50' when the water temps were in the 100's and when they were in the 70-80's

Its all about fish care. You have to fiz fish constantly, not at the end of the day so they will swim back down.

Really would much rather keep it with state regs. 5 fish and 14" minimum
Tournaments are going to happen.. They were goin on when it first reopened even though they weren't allowed. the big tournaments probably do better at fish care then the 10 others you get on any given weekend.

Eliminating the smaller tournaments would be the biggest benefit. Then you don't have 3 clubs going at once mixed with the regular people, all the weigh in setups etc. Set a tournament minimum and only a few will qualify. That alone will take away a huge headache as well as some folks that are more serious than they should be.

I have no authority to tell anyone how to run their tournaments. Just my suggestions. If you want to catch 50 bass from 50 ft, fizz all the them and rotate the largest 5 through your iced lived well all day you can. I know there are bass deep year round. In the summer they are skinny and pale. In the winter they are fat.
I believe and it is just my personal hypothesis that when those bass are pulled from 50 ft up into 100 degree water, even though you fizz them so they do not float, they do not survive more than a few hours. If you have caught some in that situation and gone back the next week and caught the same fish then I am wrong. We know from a study that threadfin shad die in 102 f degree water not matter what. I do not know the bass mortality temp but sudden temp changes are very hard on any fish. Plenty of bass under 20 feet to be caught until the lake at least gets into the 80s. Just my opinion.

But then less guys could send it and swing for the fences to get 5x3 and make the water their stadium.

Can't wait to see all the FB and Instagram posts that weekend of people who boxed their fish with no tournament going on. #doitforthegram #checkoutmy12poundlimit

Every club in north Texas is scrambling to set tournament dates for October and beyond right now... you can bet on that.

I’ve said this many times, charge a $150 tournament permit fee and you cut out 99% of the tournaments. It’s real easy to enforce with the staff already there… if a weigh in is set up and they don’t have a permit you don’t allow them to proceed under penalty of being banned from the lake.

They gotta get a picture of their best 5….

I have done my own research and found a study so I am an expert now.
Actually this study does show variables of 5 day survivals and should be useful for those keeping bass in live wells in warmer temp and from differential temps. 33 C is 91 f and 29 C is 84 f so you do not have to look it up. No depth change or fizzing just temps. Having livewell at 77 f with 84 f lake temp reduced the 2 out of 5 mortality from 88% to 13% compared to livewell same temp as lake (table3.3). So even well into November cooling your livewell out here is needed.
Livewell study

It’s just a lake fellas. Don't try to micro manage the hell outta it.

Great news,will take pressure off of the good lakes.

All this just to catch 2 pounders......

They gotta show the grind bruh....it's all about the grind. Those 2 boat tournaments are big deals and they gotta bring their A game, fish their guts out, give 110% and leave it all out there on the water.

That hurt, your going to jinx me. Never fished it, and hopefully I will get a chance to have a good day out there..

Idle only in the fog should be the logical way to go. Unfortunately it will never work. I've been out there so many times where a cold front hits after launch in the morning. Fog sets in after everyone is out on the water. Anyone with half a brain knows you should not do anything above an idle when you can't even see your trolling motor. YET, there are always a hand full of idiots you can hear running wide open in the fog. Every single time. I am always amazed that someone hasn't been killed out there in the fog. I did see a boat hit the bank one morning in the fog. It's unfortunate that we have a hand full of bass fishermen that are just to stupid to use what should be common sense. #3 is just not a reality, and number 2 probably isn't either.

Sweet lady! Always greeted me my Hi Todd.... I'd bet she did that with everyone!

I don't doubt what you say here, and I'm certainly not trying to shoot the messenger. I suspect if management was solely up to J Walls alone it would be managed way better. I get how huge companies work. However, I find it unimaginable that a multi million dollar company can't figure out how to take an online reservation with payment. It really does blow my mind. Only a mega corporation could make it this difficult. Have you guys ever considered just putting the yearly management of the fishing side up for bid to a private company? Let the private company manage the fishing side for the contract term (with some obvious terms and rules). At that point the private company goes to a set of rules that either doesn't let non paid online reservations in before say 10am or they simply don't allow them in at all. Pre pay makes no shows a non issue. The process needed to manage the fishing at Squaw properly just isn't that difficult to figure out.

Im ready for some of those 100 fish days! Get you blue fleck power worms ready!

This is the funniest comment that I have read in some time. There will always be some jack wagon with the holier than thou attitude and take off.

Sounds logical to me except my old brain still has memories of being out on Monticello in fog so thick you literally couldn’t see past the front of your boat idling around but with your butt so tight you couldn’t drive a toothpick in it with a sledge hammer because you could hear boats running on plane in the area. (Sorry for the visual) 😳

Thanks @Jwalls for communicating with all of us. Looking forward to get back out there.

As a note, Im the pres of one of the local bass clubs. I don't think it would be unreasonable to ask for a Tourney permit and a fee along side of it. Assuming it wasn't too much, clubs would pay it IMO. As far as the fog goes, I think you have to allow people to fish the lake they are paying to fish. If that means Idle only, it means Idle only. We've all been held in the bouys all day and it's just not worth the drive and money spent to be held back. People who fish there have to understand that it's a strong possibility and they must abide by the rules. Maybe we can get a strobe light installed that flashes like a school zone. If it's flashing you can't run out from the ramp.

Never stop never stopping

All this talk of running on plane in heavy fog is strong testament of human stupidity.

I'll be sure to keep some business cards handy so my trauma surgeon buddies and I are on speed dial after the crash.

Watto will you hold on to some of my cards as well...I migjht be coaxed out of retirement to handle a few pi cases as well.....

if they dont have hard rules about running in the fog the folks wont pay any attention.

Naaa. She typically just called me Chris

The biggest problem with the big fish disappearing is this in my opinion.

So when the lake reopened after 9/11, big bags where brought in for a few years. When people bring bags in, they aren't a bunch of small fish. Bringing that many big fish from the discharge or river to the ramp and having temps fluctuate from 10-20degreee at the ramp, depending on where you caught them. Just like buying fish and not acclimating them in a fish tank. Along with not fizzing, the big ones start to deplete. You can see this as the years went on, up to the last 2 years it was open. It went from 24+lb bags to 15-18winning. I can't tell you how many times I had to fizz fish after weigh in. Heck, I caught fish in 8ft of water that needed fizzing along with 61ft of water. Those big fish just died off.... Since talapia are vegetarians mostly, I wouldn't blame it on talapia eating bait. But I would also bet, those talapia take nutrients from the bait. Why did they take the cleaning station out? Heard they did, imagine all the dead talapia in the parking lots now. Also, why not fix the ramp?

A lot of yall are kinda missing some key components, they reopened the lake so people would stop whining about it, theyre running a skeleton crew already and some of yall still find ways to nitpick everything. Id bet if this keeps up theyll say screw it all and just permanently close it.

Yep. Bunch of Karen’s.

It would be best if they did a $50 non refundable reservation capped at 50, no tournaments, and catch and release only.

Even better…..

The metal post on the boat slips had rusted to the point of starting to fall down and was no longer safe. The cleaning station and electrical were all part of that structure. We have been trying to figure how to reroute the electrical and put something back up for cleaning fish. May not happen right away. The pick up dock fell apart also. I posted a picture on the post I started in the freshwater section. On the ramp issue are you referring to the hole that was brought up on ramp one? Any thoughts on how to fix it?

So here’s an idea - ask each vehicle that comes through the gate for a separate donation for repair and upkeep. Yes I realize they are already paying a fee to fish there but it sounds like that fee just pays for some employees salaries. I’d bet there are plenty of people that would donate to help out a lake that they love so much.

I got a better idea!!!!

Make it free to fish with a reservation. Make it free to cancel a reservation. Charge $100 for a no show.

The more folks pay to fish that lake, the more entitled these same a hose think they are.

Up the price for maintenance, $50-100 a day

If they are open for 3 days and it's $30 per day per boat they are bringing in $9000 per week or $36000 in gate fees. Surely the employees at the gate do not cost them anywhere near $9000 per week.

You would figure that there would be a little money left to put towards improvements of facilities.

I am not going to get into gate fees, employees cost and such. I have already crossed lines in posts much farther than I should have. The dock dismantling was what was done this year for safety. Hopefully can do something more next summer before we open next fall.

I'll tell you what I don't understand. They say this is different than a coal plant because they have to be able to "Evacuate" everyone in the event of an Emergency. Why don't they have to worry about that on plant lakes in other states? Also, why does Texas have only the one generating plant and places like South Carolina have FOUR? If we're losing COAL as quickly as we are, we need to supplant it with SOMETHING!!!

They really just need to say thanks, and quit with all the suggestions. They don’t realize that their opinions don’t mean [censored].

I’ll start.

Thanks!

So Comanche Peak is one the few nuclear plants that is on a small lake. Most are on rivers and a few on the coast. Because the peninsula is so small the plant is closer to the water than most and thus the evacuation rules are different. We used to have 8 employees and 4 that were to get into two boats and find everyone on the water and have them leave. That plan was made before cell phones existed.
We are now using cell phones to contact everyone with 3 people total. This is why we need your number and you need to answer your phone when called. We are trying to find a way to group text from an excel spread sheet to speed that up.

The number of nuclear plants per state and how to replace coal is way above my paygrade.

Keep the price the same and Ban tournaments. No need for them on that lake!

I'll wait till all the tourists get done catching rats and stupid fish. Then start collecting.

At least the hydrilla has made a good comeback on Squaw.

I think it would be great to have high school championship there over 2 days with 150 boats per day.

He did asked for peoples opinion. It has been my experience that when you ask, people will typically give it.

Dude, quit putting pk pics on squaw threads

And why would they let a bunch of crybabies on a small fishing forum determine the outcome for the lake

Will they be allowed laundry baskets?

There are mobile phone apps that do this, but most do require uploading the excel sheet to a host server to actually send out the texts - may not be desireable in this case due to privacy issues. There are also PC apps that do the same thing, requiring a hard line of course. Several ways to do it just need to determine requirements.

Take a look at WhatsApp for Business - May be able to setup a site to take money and once you have the money, capture the phone number and send replies all within the app context.

The operation of a recreation area at Squaw Creek was part of the original permit to build the nuclear power plant in Somerville county. It was not optional.

I got on the home page reservation. Can not find a calendar. Help please?

Try this link:
https://www.luminant.com/squaw-creek-park/reservations/

The calendar is on a timer and disappears and reappears at 07:00 am. This was the only way the Web guy could figure out how to move the sign up from Midnight. He set it up to go away at 5:00 pm. I have a request in to move it to 11:00 pm. The reservation for the 6th and 7th have not filled yet so signs up on weekdays are at least a little slower.

Thanks for communicating with us Look forward to getting back out there

I bet a bunch of you don’t get in just because of your comments.😂

WAWI booked every time so he's got the lake solo, he needs some privacy with his old gal

I have a 5 gallon bucket of blue fleck worms ready. I will be fileting a limit every time I go

Heck Ya!

Chris Borden?

Just fyi for those that missed, I just canceled my reservation and the other reservation going with me is suppose to cancel as well. Decided it wasn’t worth driving 2 1/2 hours to fish 90 degree water or fight all 149 others to get up the river.

So $30.00 barely covers the park upkeep, they must really go in the hole when the lake is closed. Give me a break, I'll just avoid the circus.

We are gonna wait a bit. Let the donators start feeling good about themselves......