Luminant plans to open Squaw Creek Park Oct 1st. The website is supposed to update late today (Aug 31st) and reservations should become available tomorrow (Sept 1st) at 07:00 am. We changed it from midnight so us older folks would not have to set an alarm to get up to make sure we got a spot. I will update this thread when website updates and link it tomorrow when reservations go live. The current plan is still 150 boats. Thursday - Sunday, closed Holidays, October - March. Park will be closed April- September. Another difference will be if you show up without a reservation you will be parked to the side and only allowed to enter after everyone with a reservation in line has gone in and we have not reach 150 yet. If all 150 show up you do not get in. That has never happened but best not to risk it.
There is lots to discuss and I will do my best to provide updates as I get them. I do not work at the park but work in another department under the park manager and I am helping out until the newly hired park employees are up to speed.

Jimmy

Thank you Jimmy.

So IT did get the note changed on the website so if all goes well in the morning the reservations will open at 7am.

Your welcome John.

maybe all you guys can finally get some rest now,....good grief.

Let the traffic begin! Haha. I miss that lake a little. It’s fun. I’ll be making a reservation in the morning.

Does the 30 days in advance apply to every reservation or just for the reopen date?

The reservation will come up one day at a time 30 days in advance at 7:00 am. That slows down someone who would make a reservation for everyday that the park is open for a whole month and then no show for most of them.

If I recall correctly, you get on this reservation list for the privledge of paying Luminant a lot of money to fish their private lake? Reminds me of the people that camp out on the sidewalk for days to buy the first copies of the next iPhone. Jeez!

I have to pay to fish eagle mountain, joe pool, grapevine just to name a few..

So Jim, Luminant is required to be able to evacuate the lake in the event of emergency. If the lake was for a gas plant we would just open the gate and let 300 hundred boats show up and park all the way to the road. When we were a utility it was free and we could charge back to the customers the park expenses to cover the cost of employees, roads repair, equipment for mowing and such. The lot of money($30) is to reduce the cost of having the park open. We are trying to get it close to cost neutral as the years before we lost money. They are opening the park as a good will public relations measure. They are not making money off of it and to tell you the truth it is a pain in the rear to deal with. Do not seem to be able to make anyone happy. Keeping their private lake closed is much easier. The reservation system is to get those willing to pay $30 for being able to catch 30 keeper bass in January on the water as fast as possible. If we get rid of it then 200 boats would show up and we would spend 5 minutes a boat signing in and taking most of the day to get 150 in and sending the last 50 home. It amazes me how fast over 100 boats pay and launch out there on a Saturday morning. Since you live over 5 hours away not sure why you complained.

So we had a few technical issues this morning. Was around 8 when IT got it working. Was booked at 150 in less than 15 minutes. For around 5 minutes he accidently opened Sept. There were 40 reservation made in that period. 4 guys had 27 reservation between them in 5 minutes. Which goes back to my earlier comment of why it only comes up 1 day at a time. I will be calling them shortly to tell them they did not get as lucky as they thought.

Will Teresa still be working the gate? That was one of the nicest ladies I have ever had the pleasure to meet.


Also how are the ramp conditions? I know the first ramp was getting pretty sketchy right before it closed. Ok to launch from but recovery was wrestling match to get the trailer level.

"Will Teresa still be working the gate?"
Teresa is great and we did try to get her back but she is having health issues that will not allow her to work.

"Also how are the ramp conditions?"
I would assume it is the same or worse. The park boat has been launched a few times to get dosimetry off the lake and Hummingbird launched a few boats early on to survey the lake. They used ramps 4 and 5 so no info about ramp one. I will look into it. If it is a hole at the end of the concrete maybe we can push some rock down the ramp and fill it in. If not allow it to be open for launch and then coned off.

The grass is 3ft high around the ramps. The boat slips had to be torn down because they were falling down. Cleaning station went away with the slips. The pickup dock fell apart and will not be replaced this year. Lots of plumbing issues due to the freeze during power outage. The employees start Sept 6th and are going to mow and fix what we can.

So what are the options to get back onto the boat? Is the seawall still right next to the ramps? Or did it go away with the boat slips?

Just the slips in the middle went away. The walk ways on the sides are still there.