The dam is closed. With all this new rain it may be a couple days before it can be reopened.

gonna try and put the boat in tomorrow as long as its not too windy. putting in at about 5:30pm at welch park if anyone wants to join.

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..

well I got home and it was crazy windy but decided to go out anyways. it was ruff and slowed me down. went to where the road would be just before the right turn to the ramp cause there is a crazy amount of shad there! started drifting the area with live shad and caught what I think is my PB channel on rod and reel right on the boat ramp between the light and tree. honestly I was fishing for whites/hybrids.
after that ran and fished the rocks at the dam for cats but was windy and hard to fish. didn't catch anything so went back to the road going to the ramp to fish the street lights that are now close to the water. ive been doing good on them lately. caught a bunch of drum and this 7 lb cat.

I know this is bank fishing section but hope this helps anyways. good luck yall

Can we fish behind the dam or is it closed?

Its open to fishing but was there this morning but nobody was catching anything to speak of. Was there about 20 minutes and saw one fish caught.....Gates are closed so no water flowing.....

I was out there yesterday. Lots of gaspargou being caught.

Lake level is back up to 257 feet and the dam is still closed. Small scattered showers have continued over the last couple of days with more expected in the 10 day forecast.

The dam is open and releasing 2400 cfs.

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..

My best prediction will be first or second week of October before it hits 238' again. If we get any large rains that could be held off significantly. If July and August are wetter than normal it has the potential to stay high in to the winter.

Quite sad that so many mature oaks just died from drought and now many more will die from flooding. The huge creek bottom flats wont be the same for a very long time, if ever.

Is there an official water height for the powers that be to release a little control and let us use the launches again? No reason at all for the Nails Creek Launch to not be useable.

Seems like some of the ramps will open when the lake reaches the ten foot high mark or below.. The rate of drop will increase as the lake gets smaller if there is no more flooding upstream. I'm betting by later this month (July) the lake will be lowered to the point where a couple of ramps can be used if they have not been damaged.

The issue with all the roads and ramps is whether the flood water has undermined the pavement. You can bet that every structure above the ground after sitting in ten feet of water for a month or two is a total loss and so the road base might also be compromised. COE parks and the lake is federal property so the process to begin repairs will be subjected to a whole host of rules and regulations. I'm not sure what the state park (TPWD) repair process and timeline will be but would expect something similar to the federal governments approach as the two are tied together in a lease agreement.

Monday July 6, 2015 the lake is at 254. That is 16 feet above pool level so the COE is making progress with the gate wide open. The summertime temperatures will help by speeding up evaporation too, and with a little cooperation from Mother Nature we might be fishing a normal lake again come September..

I'm looking forward to breaking out the kayak and exploring back in the creeks once the water gets back to normal and the temps cool off a bit. I can't even guess as to what it will look like after so much flooding.