SOIL CONSERVATION TANKS

Anyone fish some of the soil conservation tanks? I know of one thats dam is on the list to be repaired/replaced. This particular tank is quite large, about 25 acres. the dam is a 50 year dam that is 70 years old and I'd like to get a line in before they start construction. This tank is well hidden from public eye and seems as if it hadn't had much fishing pressure. I only assume this because it is not easy to get to. There weren't many signs of human evidence... beer cans, monofiliment, styrofoam bait cups, etc...
It sits on Private Property, and is surrounded by about a 250 acre abandoned farm. I think it's one of those farms the government pays the owner not to grow anything. There's an old overgrown road leading to it, but it is gated about a 3/4 mile from the tank. I would really like to get my kayak in there.

If the tank is surrounded by that kind of land... I would be hesitant to fish it. If the land around it is private they probably aren't going to want you out there. I'm sure the fishing is awesome, but I think you would be taking a risk. If I see private property all around the pond/tank. I assume it's off limits. you may be able to make a few phone calls to the city it's in and find out for sure though.

Does anyone know where I could find a list of these tanks? I would be curious to know if I have any around my area.

Most of the soil conservation lakes were built in the 60's on private lands. There are several in my county (Lamar), but I know of none that are open to public fishing. Some of these small lakes cross property boundaries and are shared by more than one owner. One of these lakes was planned to be built on property that I now own, but it never materialized. NRCS maintains these lakes (in a lackadaisical manner), and they might be able to provide more info as to location and owner info if you're interested in pursuing permission to fish.

These lakes are like the bigfoot of the fishing world.

Lots of people claim they have seen one, but no one has any proof.

There are a few in Denton that are public, but the vast majority are on private land.

Pretty sure some of the lakes with the Private Water Fishing outfit are soil conservation lakes.

I am unaware of any of the soil conversation lakes that are open to the public. The lakes were built by the federal government to slow erosion in the 1950's, 60's and 70's. They were built on private land and thus "owned" by individual landowners. Most are not good fisheries as they were not designed to grow fish. they were designed to stop erosion. Their life span was designed to be approx 50 years. Most are at least 50 years already. The great news is that for the most part, our federal government funded some incredibly well built dams, overflow pipes, and emergency spillways that money could buy. These were done right!

I love the Bigfoot analogy. Very funny.

We lease 69 private lakes and 7 of them are soil conservation lakes. Six of them are in the Dallas area and one of them is 1/2 way between Houston and San Antonio.

Not to try and split hairs....

But, "Soil Conservation Lake" can fall into several categories, not all of which were primarily built for the control of soil erosion. The erosion control types would usually be designated as "soil bank" ponds or lakes and by now would have all filled in enough to be either a swamp or dry land. The ones typically referred to as "fishing lakes" were usually built for flood control and were called "floodwater retarding structures." These lakes can swell several times in size very quickly with heavy rainfall and then slowly release the water over time, helping to prevent flooding in the watershed. If you look at them, you can usually see the "big lake" area surrounding the "small lake" that stays full, as well as the type of device employed to release the water slowly. These range in size (the small lake part) from around 5 to maybe over 40 acres and many have managed fisheries.

All of both types and others I've been to were on private land. Most were paid for entirely or partly by government grants of one type or another. Usually the fishery aspect is the responsibility of the landowner and any uses the landowner has for the water body must not interfere with the primary designation for that water body. Say, you couldn't stopper the lake when it was filled up and keep it full, you have to let it slowly drain back to its normal pool.

A lot of them are very poor fisheries because they typically have a lot of rough fish, but some of the best bass, crappie and sunfish fishing I've done in my life has been in some of these type lakes.

There is one in Burnet. A friend of mine family owns the land. I have fished it a bunch. Very over populated.

I had access to one several years ago until the land was sold. We pulled several 8lb bass from it. Like said earlier, the dams were built very well. Every so often, a crew comes in and clears the dam from trees and overgrowth. But it is like any other pond on private property. You need permission or your trespassing.

I know of one, but you'll need to PM for details. It's about 25mins from downtown Dallas.

A friend of mine had one on his property. It was silted in and max depth was 3ft.

I've only found one... and you better believe that I'm keeping my mouth shut on the location. It's a hidden gem that a friend of mine found and it fishes very well. It fluctuates with the amount of rain that we receive. When we were getting hit with all the rains it was about 8-10 feet higher than normal and now it's about 5-6 feet low. When the waters up... I'm there. I think most people have the same logic as me though. If one person knows the location, soon 400 will and your honey hole will be just a hole.

@BankBassin I seriously doubt the forum would warrant a mass migration of invasive fishermen.

Since I like things the way they are... I'm not willing to risk it. Call it what you want, but there's a bunch of people that when the find a honey hole, they don't tell people about it.

I got to fish a real life Conservation Lake few weeks ago.

My buddies co-workers family owns it.

It was pretty great! No huge bass but they were mostly around 2-3lbs.

Fished for the "cycle" in that I caught bass, bluegill, crappie (a huge one), and a catfish all on jigs.

Would be a great lake for Salexs stable but I guess the owners are not interested in strangers on their land... I can understand that.

Boy it was great though. And they dont even manage it, its just pretty healthy on its own like that. Very lucky.

There was one of those lakes outside of my old home town that was awsome, the best fishing period. They had a cattle guard and when you crossed it they had a mail box you put in $5.00 per day. A few years later someone else bought the land and put up a gate and stopped the fishing. There was a lawsuit over it because even tho that was private land, the lake was built with tax payer money and i understood that they could not refuse access to it as long as you didn't leave trash or cause any damage. I moved away from there several years ago and there are several of those lakes around me now and they are all posted.

Yea. I can't imagine buying a multi million dollar piece of property with a soil conversation lake on it and having to allow people I did not invite access to my ranch. Who would ever buy one, if you had to allow folks access? Parties, trash, all hours of the night, no control...no thanks.

Soil Conservation lakes on private property can not be fished without permission from landowner. The exception is if there is a deeded recorded easement allowing public access.

Our Tax dollars are still being poured into these conservation lakes.
Go to : www.tsswcb.texas.gov to the left of the page click on Flood Control Programs

TSSWCB Awards Flood Control Grant to Local Soil and Water Conservation District
TEMPLE - TSSWCB awards funding to the Navarro SWCD to match federal dollars from the USDA-NRCS Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) Program for needed repairs to flood control dams.
Read more...

I'm writing a letter to my state rep and encourage others to do the same. I have called gov agencies also and got the run around. Sure lawyers were involved, because most ranchers got these lakes for free and don't want anyone to use them. I have a friend who has a friend that has one of these lakes on his ranch and tpwd has stocked it and runs the shock boat on it ever couple of years, and yes it is posted and yes it is a high fence ranch and yes that is illegal, but know one wants to do anything about it.

A friend of a friend huh?

I have one on my place for erosion/flood control. The Feds selected properties with wildlife management goals in mind. In other words, I had to have previously met a lot of different criteria and several guys that I know applied but were not selected. It's about an acre or a little more and was cost sharing with the USDA. They checked on it for 6 or 7 years and then it's all mine. I believe that they spend/spent a maximum $19,000 and I covered the rest. To my knowledge, the program is no longer active.

They don't stock them. That's the landowners problem. Nor does the USDA or the TPWD come by to run shock boats. If the allegations are true from the friend of a friend there would have to be political connections involved.

And, trespassing is still trespassing. Poaching is still poaching.

Well these tanks were usually built to assist in some flood control. The owners of the property get the tank sometimes for free and sometimes for a small cost. But they have to maintain certain aspects of the dam such as no beavers, overgrowth, reasonable access to dam by guvment for inspections, etc at their own expense. So it ain't free by no means to a landowner. I have a friend who owned property that had a 23 acre tank on it for flood control and it was a pain in the derrier to deal with the guvment and their requirements.

So if a landowner would be required to allow public fishin on said tank, I would see absolutely no problem in charging an access fee to cross the private land to reach a "public tank". It it were my property and I had to let someone fish a tank on my property, then I would hire a "land janitor" to keep up with all the trash, road maintenance, fish stocking if it became necessary, etc and the access fee would cover all them added expenses. Basically you could access if ya really wanted to but it would be Kinda expensive.

I helped that friend of mine do some excavation work on that ranch about 8 years ago and there was a TPWD shock boat out on that aprox 25 acre lake and i saw them dipnetting some fish. I was told they have been managing the bass. I'm sure there were some political deals going on, but several years ago (30yrs)i fished several of those lakes around the southern Dallas area and TPWD did stock those according to the land owners. The bottom line is if any Taxpayers money was spent on it weather it is private or not the public is entitled to some use of it weather it be free access or charge a respectable gate fee. I live on Cedar Creek Lake and it belongs to Tarrent County Water District, they bought the land, built the lake, but they got some grant money(tax money) and thats why its a public lake. Thats the reason most lakes are public because a portion of tax money was used to build it or purchase the land. There is still tax money available for repairs to existing lakes its called O&M Grant program.

Yep, at one time, long ago, the State did supply fish for getting a private pond started. Then they quit. I've always wondered whether private fish sellers kicked up a fuss about competition.

The $19,000 is pretty small compared to the real costs of having a water hole. And fish stocking is the least expensive part of the process that a lot of people try to save money on. Maintaining a decent fishing hole is a lot of work and $. Initial stocking, done right, is less than $500 per acre.

I remember a story several years ago about a State Senator who got his land stocked by TPWD with some exotic "deer". I expect that is about what you saw when TPWD sent in the shock boats. An awful lot of landowners these days don't go for the standard recommendation of bass, bluegills and catfish.

BTW, I'm aware of one private lake that was done for flood control. The Land owner didn't want it. The Feds keep a careful eye on it but could care less about the fish.

You're not speaking of Hi-View are you? In Midlothian? Off of 875?

What was the response from your state rep? Did you hear from many others who also wrote?

1. The state is not doing shock surveys on these lakes. You may "have a friend who has a friend that has one of these lakes," but my family owns one, and the state has never shocked it. With thousands of soil conservation lakes in the State, it would literally be impossible for the state to survey them "every couple of years" like you say.

2. The state did not purchase the land from the landowner, they simply build the lake, so the public has no claim to it.

3. The lakes were built to control flooding and soil erosion (which is a benefit to the public), fishing is just a byproduct of the lake existing. Your tax dollars were spent to help with flooding/erosion, not to provide a lake to fish in. If the state built a retaining wall or culvert on private land, would you be demanding access to it? Just because the project happened to be a lake and you like to fish does not give you the right to access private property.

^^^This^^^. Excellent post Techsan4!

Exactly, and the fish in the lakes are the property of the landowner, not the state. [color:#3333FF][/color]

PM SENT

When they construct on that pond they will drain it and if the water and fish all go in a field and die they do not care.

I only know of one that has public access and has some BIG fish in it. My Dad taught me the same when it comes to telling people your honey hole spot though.

In some cases the lake part does not fall within the easement area controlled by NRCS. They may control the dam and spillway area but nothing else.