Texoma Terror

This tale (there are more) involves a fishing/photography expedition. Three days, two nights, one on the Oklahoma side and one, up lake, on the Texas side. It all came about when brother-in-law Bob came down for a visit.

I guess you'd call it an adventure. We adventured out to the wilds of Lake Texoma, went wild, then returned safely. Good adventure.

Boat loaded, we motored up Hwy 69, leaving Tyler behind, heading for Kingston, OK. Nice trip up 69, not fast like a freeway, but a shorter distance and quaint towns to see. Lindale, Minneola, Emory, Greenville at I-30, Leonard, Whitewright, Dennison on I-75, across the Oklahoma border and on to Kingston - Soldier Creek Resort on Lake Texoma, 176 miles.

We checked in and took boat ride over to  Highport Resort for some forgotten supplies, dinner in Kingston and in for a night's sleep.

Our humble room was perfect and The Boat was happily sitting,  safe right outside our door.

 Up in the dark we launched and headed out to the fishing grounds at Platter Flats, tucking in our  wind breakers against  the very damp, cool morning air. The sun rose into a cloudy sky, it's early rays did nothing to easy our shivers.



The flats are legend and I have caught fish here before, perhaps not this time of  year though.  We saw fish on the fish finder, all below 20' but we had no deep running lures. Threw slabs and  heavy plastic, to no avail. There were a number of boats around us, close enough to see that at least one of them was a guide's boat with several people on it. It looked like they were probably using live bait (big shad), but we didn't see them catching anything either. We finally gave it up when the hunger pangs got too great. Our marina had a decent restaurant, so we were into bacon and eggs as soon as we got back.

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Texoma is known for its huge marinas and cabin cruisers, over 50'. In this Marina, Highport, there are large boat houses on the second deck, many equipped for spending a week or a weekend. There are plenty of water toys around these slips and the smell of BBQ is not uncommon from the many outdoor grills. 

Below, the floating residents of Big Mineral Marina are on display.

Lake Texoma covers 89,000 acres and has a varied shoreline. On the South side, the Texas side, much of the shore line is limestone cliffs and broken rock. Only West of the Willis Bridge (Hwy 377) do you begin to find sandy shores.

On the North side lies
Oklahoma and this side has

sandy shores, with long wild beaches like this one. Oklahoma owns all of the lake to the North of the Red River channel which comprises the majority of the lake. It also owns "The Islands", fewer now than there use to be as some have eroded away into sandbars. The remaining ones, while smaller, still harbor wildlife. That does not include the weekend beach party's.

Huge island boat rafts are legend.

Then there are people like us who like to fish, swim and photograph it's beauty,

Here on the river side of the islands, the beaches

are mostly clean and smooth as they slowly wash away. It's easy to see the progress of the sand slowly sliding into the lake. I don't know how long it will take for them to disappear, there were twice as many forty years.

I'm checking the GPS, looking for a likely landing spot to do a little photography.                                                      

                                                                     Found one.

 

The interior of the islands is varied, Some of them have hills as high as 25' above the normal level (they will be the last to go), most are lower and many have inlets, bays and slews. North Island has the highest point of any island at 640',

And there are deer on some of the islands, too. Hence the footprint of one, on the beach.

Boats abound, even in the middle of a September week, all bigger than us, and faster, too.






But, we had little interest in the antics of the idle rich, we were looking for a place to swim and shoot some birds...

An island beach is the perfect place for a dip.

The temperature had risen into the comfortable 80s by now and it was warmer in the sun. I'm was happy to have the distinctive blue Bimini top to help with the heat and the sunburn potential. This island sits on the edge of the river channel where the water is cool and deep not far from shore. Bob  had the Nikon pointed in so many places I stopped paying attention.

Hey, what's that sticking up out

of the water? It looks like a hat,

and a hand. Where's the head?

There's the head, and some shoulders and more, and more, and more...

Next we explored the interior bays on the back side of this island.The far shore is Oklahoma and the water in between is the main lake on the North side. Not many people explore these bays and slews, too much fun in the big water, on skis, boards and the big beaches.

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This one was not only quiet, it was pretty scenic,



The boat awaits our return at the end of the bay 









Interesting weeds, no idea what they are...

Time for some serious birding so we slipped up
a narrow inlet, up-lake, on the West side of the
Willis Bridge. An Egret!

 Egrets are not rare here but they are beautiful, in the water or in flight. Don't  you think so?

Coming in for a landing, flaps up instead of down











Touch down

And of course it's really all about eating and nesting.

The perfect pose. Nice shot Bob!

In the category of WOW birds is the Goshawk. This one sat and watched up from his high perch atop a dead tree. 

Did you get this far? Well, don't stop now. The "story" follows:

We were hungry and decided to eat today's Subway on the beach. I saw a small island ahead and we made for it.

A pretty little island and so desolate, about a mile off  Highport Marina.  Pure peace. Even the few boats seemed to disappear as we pulled up on the beach, dead ahead. I got out to go search for a place to sit and had to go  the opposite side of the island to find it. Bob was busy putting his camera up and soon came to join me on a comfortable Willow tree log. A bit of a breeze, but comfortable.  We drank a beer and ate our subs. And we talked a bit, enjoying the environment and our company.

Lunch finished, time to move on. We headed back to the boat, around the to the other side of this puny patch of sand. When I looked, I didn't see any boat. First thought, "it's a little further around". NOT! We both quickly realized it was gone from where we had left it. Instinctively I looked down wind and sure enough there it was, sailing away. I ran into the water in a desperate try to grab the side, a rope, anything. The sand bar ran a long way out and I almost reached it, but the wind was sailing it away faster than I could swim. When it got to neck deep, I decided it was better not to drown chasing this carrot and returned to dry sand. The Bimini top was giving it a good ride.

We did a quick assessment of what we had. Shorts, check. Empty pockets, check. T-shirt, check. Water shoes, check....

Everything was in the boat. Cell phones, ugh, two cameras with accessories and a video cam, water and beer, my high dollar GPS depth finder, matches to start a fire, fishing poles, tackle boxes, everything. And we were on this little island a long mile from shore with no boats anywhere in sight. Our boat and it's blue top, far in the distance and getting smaller by the minute. Eventually it would wash up on shore, somewhere up the lake, but that wasn't the worst thing. Worst would be it being found by another boater or shore rat that might consider it salvage. We're stuck, we're helpless, we have no food or shelter, we could die here! TERROR!

It was a little easier for me. I am a 40 year veteran of this lake and have been nearly hit by lightning, bounced around on huge waves here and camped on the islands many time, often for as long as a week. I knew it's quirkiness and some of its dangers, but this was something different. Bob, on the other hand, was a stranger in a suddenly seriously, scary moment. I was sure someone would come near us at some point, but it was getting late on a Wednesday afternoon. There was a real possibility we might have to spend the night here. An uncomfortable thought. And our gear. What's happened to our gear...

We saw a boat coming. Well, it wasn't actually coming, it was more like running down the Texas shoreline toward Highport Marina, nearly a mile away. And it wasn't just a boat it was a small cruiser moving very fast. We waded into the water and waved our t-shirts violently and Bob yelled, OK, screamed, but it was no use. There was certainly no hope of them hearing us so far away and over the sounds of their engine(s). They disappeared into the marina cove. More reality set in.

Time to think, not about what we were going to do next, there weren't that many choices. Wait for a boat and get their attention. No boats. Thinking. I thought back to how we had gotten into this predicament, what had we done wrong. Well, that was easy, I had jumped ashore without giving Bob any instructions, like pull the boat up on the sand when  you get out. He had gotten out, lightened the boat and the breeze did the rest. My fault, I was the captain.

Time went on, the frustration mounted, then I heard Bob shouting and looked. I saw nothing but the Texas shore and some of the next island. Bob yelled again and I heard a faint shout, then the sound of a motor. We're going to be rescued!!! I watched the small bass boat with two fishermen, start toward us. It looked small so told Bob that I would go with them to get our boat, then come back and get him. "I'm not staying on this patch of sand another minute", he said. I got it, we overloaded their boat and began slowly moving in the direction where we last saw our boat.

It took a little while, but finally caught up with that blue top, still floating, happily bobbing it's way West. We caught it and crawled aboard with all of our untouched gear.What a relief. What a day. The Texas boys wouldn't take a dollar or a beer, just like it's suppose to be. I'll help you now, you help me or some one else later. That didn't affect our gratitude for the rescue though, it never will.

We motored back through the islands and landed one more time on a beach. Before I left the boat, Bob had already taken several turns of line around a shoreline tree. I guess we won't be losing any more boats.

I wonder why Bob and I haven't been in a boat since?

We could have ended up like this, I suppose...

But, didn't!

We loaded the boat and headed home.



END