The Best Lakes in Northeast Texas

Caddo is the one lake in Texas that formed on its own rather than behind a dam, though a dam holds the level today. The water spreads through a maze of bald cypress draped in Spanish moss, and the wetland was named a Ramsar site of international importance in October 1993, expanded in 1998 to roughly 20,000 acres of public and private land.

Caddo Lake State Park dates to 1934 and the Civilian Conservation Corps stonework is still in service, including nine historic cabins you can rent. The park office rents canoes, and more than fifty miles of marked paddling trails run from the park out through the sloughs and up Big Cypress Bayou. The tiny lakeshore town of Uncertain supplies guided swamp tours and boat rentals.

The Sabine River Authority closed the dam on Lake Fork Creek in February 1980 and the lake reached full pool in December 1985, on a plan built with Texas Parks and Wildlife specifically to grow big bass. It worked. The Texas state record largemouth, 18.18 pounds, came out of Fork in 1992, and the lake still supplies most of the state's top fifty largest bass.

The reservoir covers about 26,900 surface acres and the flooded timber that makes it so productive also makes it slow going for anyone who does not know the lanes. A 16 to 24 inch slot limit protects the middle class of the fishery, so bass in that range go back in the water.

The Army Corps of Engineers started Ferrells Bridge Dam on Big Cypress Bayou in January 1955 and finished it in December 1959, leaving roughly 18,000 acres of water ringed with pine. Because the Corps owns the shoreline, the lake never grew the wall of private docks that closes off other East Texas reservoirs, and the recreation areas are public land.

Texas Parks and Wildlife rates both crappie and white bass here as abundant with a high share of legal size fish, and the agency has sunk artificial habitat structures around the lake with the Corps. The shallow west end holds the aquatic growth and the fish that use it.

Cypress Springs is a 3,461 acre lake on Big Cypress Creek, and being spring fed it runs clear and holds its level when other lakes in the region drop. That is why it turns up on every list of the prettiest water in Texas and why the shoreline is solid with weekend houses.

The Franklin County Water District owns and maintains 869 acres of public parkland around it, split into six parks with camping, shelters, pavilions, ramps and swimming areas. Day use runs on a small per person fee or an annual pass, which is the trade for how well kept the parks are.

Bob Sandlin is 9,004 acres on Big Cypress Creek, impounded in 1977, with about 75 miles of shoreline. It sits in the middle of a chain with Lake Cypress Springs above it and Lake Monticello below, so you can base here and fish three lakes in a weekend.

Lake Bob Sandlin State Park covers about 640 acres on the north shore and is the most forgiving park in the region for a first trip. Screened shelters and cabins, short trails, a swimming area and a fishing pier, all close together. Crappie and catfish are the reliable catch.

Congress renamed this Corps reservoir Jim Chapman Lake in 1998, for the congressman from Sulphur Springs, and almost nobody local calls it that. Roughly 19,000 acres of water sit between two units of Cooper Lake State Park, South Sulphur on the south shore and Doctors Creek on the north, at (903) 395-3100.

South Sulphur is the bigger operation, with lakeside cabins, screened shelters, a sandy swimming beach and the 10.5 mile Buggy Whip Equestrian Trail, which is rare public horse country in this part of Texas. Texas Parks and Wildlife rates the catfishery as excellent, with blue catfish the most abundant.

The Corps dammed the Sulphur River about nine miles southwest of Texarkana, and the result is roughly 30,000 surface acres with a ring of public parks and campgrounds around it. It is the largest lake in this guide and the least crowded per acre.

White bass and crappie are the draw, with blue and channel catfish in high numbers. Atlanta State Park, 1,475 acres in Cass County on the south side of the lake, adds a state park option with two boat ramps if the Corps campgrounds are full.

This is the smallest lake on the list on purpose. Company 2891 of the Civilian Conservation Corps started work in 1935 and built both the dam and the 80 acre lake, and the park opened in 1938 inside about 507 acres of oak, maple and pine that earned it the nickname the Cathedral of Trees.

No big boats, no wake, no jet skis. You paddle, you fish from the bank or a small craft, you walk the loop trail around the water. In late October and early November the hardwood mix gives the area real fall color, which is not something most Texas lakes can offer.

Tawakoni is the western edge of this region and the one lake here that gets a steady Dallas crowd. The Sabine River Authority built Iron Bridge Dam in 1960, and the reservoir now covers about 37,900 acres with roughly 200 miles of shoreline.

Texas Parks and Wildlife stocks striped and hybrid bass annually, which sets it apart from the black bass and crappie lakes further east. The state park opened in 2002 on leased Sabine River Authority land, a compact 376 acres with about five miles of trail and a swimming beach on the east side.