Posted: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:43 AM - 7,211 Readers

By: Mike Leggett

The water's still a long way from most boat docks this week, but it's closer, close enough that lots of folks around the lake and a few Central Texas anglers think they might be able to see the end of the drought from water's edge.

Despite warnings from the Lower Colorado River Authority that the Texas drought is only dampened, not swamped, it sure feels different out there. Two weeks of moisture and a week of torrential rainfall can do that, especially to anglers who have been confined to launching from a dry bank or just watching the sun go down over the rocks in Lake Travis' dry lake bed.

"This rain should be very helpful," said Steve Magnelia, district biologist for Texas Parks and Wildlife. Magnelia monitors and manages a number of Central Texas lakes, including Travis. "It would be more helpful had it happened early in the spring, but we'll still have good recruitment from this year's crop because of the terrestrial vegetation that grew up along the lake."

For variable-level lakes, such as Travis, boomerangs between periods of drought and big rainfall events can change the lake significantly.

"Every time the lake goes down and stays down for any period of time, all this new vegetation grows up along the lake," Magnelia said. Then the heavy rains push huge loads of fresh water into the lake in a short period of time, "and you have the new lake effect," Magnelia said. "The fishing's been pretty good on Travis the last couple of years, and this should help, especially if we can get another good rise and get the lake on up there."

Here's what happens when a lake has been steadily dropping for a couple of years, the way Travis has:

Trees, grass and bushes begin to grow on moist, exposed soils every time the lake drops a little more. As the drought continues, the new vegetation becomes more substantial.

As the water begins to rise and spread out through the vegetation, there's more food for small bait fish, such as shad, and more hiding places for small game fish, such as bass. Especially in the spring, spawning success increases dramatically because of the increased food supply and purer habitat for all the fish.

Fishing in the years that follow gets better and better. There are more game fish, and they will be bigger.

Travis caught about a dozen feet of water from last week's rain upstream, in the Colorado River drainage area, and this week's heavy rains should help a little. LCRA predicts that Travis could rise several feet by the end of this week. Buchanan didn't catch nearly as much water, but rain has been falling far up the watershed, and that lake should rise, as well. They need to.

"Travis is still 20 feet below normal," Magnelia said, "but I'm thinking it's going to keep rising."

Travis is expected to rise slightly this week, but Magnelia wants more and is hoping the El Niño weather pattern keeps the rain coming. "Mansfield Dam is the only boat ramp officially open," he said, "but people have been launching off the bank in several places. We need more water to get some off the ramps open."

*  Story Contributed by: Mike Leggett