Lake Somervile

The flood gates at Lake Somerville are current
closed and will not be opened anytime in the near future, according to engineers at Lake Somerville Corp of Engineers.

The water is currently five feet from the spillway.

Currently, Lake Somerville is at 252.52 feet. Normal is 238 ft.

Is there any place to get on the lake?

Water is spilling over the overflow. Boat ramps are under water.

256.61 @ 10:30 PM May 27, 2015. The top of spillway is 258 so sometime Thursday it should breach. More rain is in the forecast..

Any one headed out there to try below the dam?

I was wrong about getting to the parking lot above the spillway. Both sides are open and lots of people checking the lake out on Thursday.





Lake Somerville spillway 7:00 PM May 28th, 2015
lake level 257.34

I live off of Park Rd 4 and saw pics from Big Creek Marina. The store is currently under water. Not sure if they closed the whole park yet or not. Also heard Birch & Nails is closed also.

WATER LEVEL.
256.91
Feet MSL

Thursday, May 28, 2015
3:00:00 AM
Level is 18.91 feet
above full pool of 238.0


Water level now

257.36
Feet MSL

Thursday, May 28, 2015
7:00:00 PM
Level is 19.36 feet
above full pool of 238.00

Slowing down but getting very close

Lake Somerville spillway 7:00 PM May 28th, 2015
lake level 257.34

Unusually wet spring weather and flooding throughout Oklahoma and Texas has ended drought conditions plaguing the region for years. Now there is too much water and many lakes are filled to the brim and overflowing their spillways. Lake Somerville in Central Texas reached maximum capacity on May 29, 2015 with more rain forecasted over the next week or so.

check out the state parks facebook pages
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-Some...2533811?sk=wall

https://www.facebook.com/BirchCreekStatePark?fref=ts

check this out ariel view of the spillway

WATER LEVEL
258.00
Feet MSL

Saturday, May 30, 2015
6:00:00 AM
Level is 20.00 feet
above full pool of 238.00

Should be over spillway this Mornin, it was real close at dark last night.

just left somerville water was trickling over spill way, it was beginning to rain so i assume it'll start flowing soon! only if i knew how to upload photos i'd share

Here's a much better view of the lake..

Wow thanks for the video, are they letting ppl launch at overlook?

The lake has not been closed but the C.O.E is strongly discouraging boaters entering the flooded lake.

I don't know if I would get on the lake right now. To many under water objects to tear out your lower unit. I can wait till it goes down. I am supprised they even let boats launch. The waves from boat can cause some major damage to buildings and such. I'll pass....

Hook-line & Sinker,

What camera do you have that will allow you to zoom all the way across the lake? Pretty amazing.

Canon PowerShot SX50 HS & the SX40 HS

dang lake is climbing back up.. @ 256.58 June 18th 2:35pm. Lots of rain fell in the Yegua watershed so I'm thinking it is bound to go over the spillway again by late Sunday.. Brazos river is rising again so the COE will hold back lake Somerville until the river goes down.. hang on it's gonna be a while longer now..

Lake level is 256.85. 18.85 feet above normal. Releasing 2385 cfs. Rain in the area today.

All the boat ramps are still closed. The water needs to recede about 5 more feet before Overlook Marina boat ramp is open again. I did see a couple of pontoon boats in the Yegua, below the dam. I think they are launching at the bridge crossing on Hwy 36. I saw 3 trucks with empty boat trailers parked in that spot.

Fishing below the dam has continued to be good. The catfish bite seems to be improving, I saw a few decent stringers of catfish. Hybrids and whites have been better in the morning. The 90 plus degree days seemed to have slowed the hybrid bite in the afternoon. The parking lot at the spillway was full on Saturday.

Called the COE @ Somerville and asked about a prediction of when the lake might be back to normal level (238). He said maybe late August but that it was more likely to be about 140 days out.. I inquired about the trees flooded by the high water and he indicated that many are starting to die now so by the time the lake gets back to near normal there will be catastrophic loses to all the parks. One thing is for sure.. it’s going to be very expensive to recover from this flood. And just like the drought of 2011 the damage done will be evident for many years to come..

still happening @ the spillway

The morning went pretty much as expected.. got there just before daylight, had the first fish hooked before we could even see well and the fish moved in on time. This fishing is about as predictable as it gets at Lake Somerville. I see no reason why this pattern won't continue through August or as long as the COE is releasing this much water.

Full moon fishing is tough..

The road from Overlook Marina to the spillway is now open.

Those fish are there if you are willing to work for them..

Just a little late Friday morning arriving at the spillway. Took only the fly rod to start, hung a big buffalo 15 minutes into the day. Broke my fly rod on that first buff.. Boogie back up the hill to retrieve my spare fly pole and spinning gear not wanting to miss the prime time bite. Go down to the other side of the spillway. Catch another buffalo and two gar before hanging into the only hybrid on the fly for the day. Switched to conventional spinning gear rigged with a popping cork and a shad streamer fly I proceed to hook up with 10 nice whitebass over the next 30 minutes or so.. The fish are there but to catch them you have to adjust tactics and gear quickly to find and stay with the fish. All the fish caught today were within easy casting of the west side rocks. The popping cork made all the difference in the world based on what other fishermen were using but not doing as well. Makes me think that a similar setup on the fly rod (popper / dropper) might be the next thing to try.

It has been a long 3 months waiting for the water to recede and Lake Somerville to return to near normal. The damage to the infrastructure is tremendous and the loss of many trees will be evident for years to come. But with all that flood water came opportunity for Mother Nature to do what she does best.. Fishermen can look forward to the next few seasons of "better than average" fishing almost anywhere there's water.

The Eagle's report on the status of the Lake Somerville State park & Trailway

Cats on a rooster!

Boat Ramps listed below are OPEN, all others are closed.
Welch Park
Apache Hills,
Birch Creek Forest Subdivision
Lake Somerville Marina and Campground
Lake Somerville Marina and Campground and Welch Park are OPEN for camping.
Rocky park, Yegua park, Birch Creek State Park, Nails Creek State Park and Big Creek Park are CLOSED.
Pecan Lake is CLOSED.

Thanks a bunch for the info.

Is this launch public?

yes BCF ramp is open but It is hard to find the first time! see google map here: https://goo.gl/maps/7fmt6

Is BCF ramp a public ramp with truck and boat trailer parking?

yes bcf ramp is public but with limited parking

As of this morning Friday September 18th, 2015 the boat ramp at the Nails Creek unit of Lake Somerville State Park & Trailway is open. It is the only part of the whole complex that is open currently. All other areas of the state park (Birch creek unit, the trailway and Nails creek unit) are still being evaluated for flood damage and safety issues. Many of the large trees that died in the flooded parks and on the trailway are at risk of falling so until that risk is dealt with those parts of the state park will remain closed. Most likely the park will open back up in stages starting in October and by early next year be near full operational.

Nails Creek Park

We are back in business at the Nails Creek boat ramp and up the creeks!

Just an FYI

The corp has the the Yegua Creeek Park ramps listed as open on there site now. Which the back ramp at Yegua is my preferred ramp. Will be out there this Friday. Always enjoy your posts.

Jeff

Yep, I launched my kayak there on Saturday.

I asked the park director John Rorie when he expected Newmans Bottom rec area on the Yegua to be open again..

Inquiring minds want to know.. thousands of fishermen are asking when Newmans will be opened again..

John's response is as follows..

The Corps is predicting we will get 6 feet out of the last rain which will put us at 10 feet high again. The Newman Bottom access road looks like the Gulf of Mexico again. Any more rain in the next month would just add to the delay. I would predict that the road will not be open until sometime in the spring.

Hard to be more specific than that but realistically we could be longer than that depending on how wet of a winter we have and how high the lake gets again. We also have a bad culvert on that road that is really big that needs repair. The only way it has survived is us patching it after it goes under everytime, but without being able to get to it could spell disaster should we get another big surge of water.

Sorry to be the messenger with the bad news.

John

Lake Somerville State Park update,
I called the park director to get the latest information on the park & trailway. Of most importance to most of you here on this TFF topic is access to Newmans Bottom. Since all of the trailway is closed currently the road leading to Newmans Bottom is closed too. The damage from the summer and fall flooding washed out the culvert on the road right before the parking area @ Newmans & the trailway bridge. Repairs are just about complete on the road so they are waiting on another safety inspection of the road and the little bridge just inside the gate at the end of CR140. The park director was pretty confident that Newmans will be opening soon and maybe sometime in the next few days.

Now to the bad news.. since the trailway is closed hiking down to Newmans is not permitted and the park police/rangers are probably going to start issuing citations to those of you who enter the closed area of the park on foot. The same goes for Nails creek on CR125 (downstream is the closed part of the trailway). Cedar creek @ Flag pond/CR125 is open downstream for a good distance before it gets to the state park which is closed.

The good news.. Kayakers/boaters can access the state park part of these three creeks from the lake by launching @ Nails Creek park boat ramp.

The hold up for much of the rest of the park is the many dead trees and their removal. 80% of birch creek park is closed due to the many dead or dying trees. The forest service has done their evaluation and the work has begun but the flooding in the fall set them back again until very recently.

Most all of the assessments of the flood damage throughout the state park have been completed and funds for repairs are pending. The decisions about the order & priority of repairs are still being discussed. Decision makers are a little gun shy about moving too quickly in rebuilding into certain areas that continue to be flood prone. We do learn from these types of events and try rebuilding to better fit the current realities.

The first step in making repairs to the park deals with the safety of all concerned and that means that the 200-plus dead trees have to be brought down. Crews are working now to make that part happen ASAP.

They don't call them widow makers for nothing!

Does anyone happen to know how the bass fishing in the main lake is?

Someone told me that they were on a good bite. But I wouldn't hold my breath on this one. Seems like all I can catch on this lake is small blacks, every now and then I'll hook up with with three pound fish, but not often.

I got into some good ones saturday. Best five were around 22 lbs in a little over 2 hours of fishing.