Experience: Kayak Fishing Purtis Creek State Park

Originally posted on October 27th, 2014 on WormInACan.com.

This past weekend my wife and I had the rare opportunity to get out without our one and two-year old for a camping trip.  Our chosen spot was Purtis Creek State Park, a small no-wake/speed restricted lake in Eustace, TX that only allows 50 motorized boats on the lake at a time, in short, the perfect kayaking lake.  We left early on a Friday so as to get a good spot (the coveted #20 or #21) right on the lake where all you have to do is drag your yak 10 yards down into the water.  Our trip coincided with a small parent/child perch tournament and a single-day crappie tournament so I was surprised to see that there were very few boats out that weekend.

Though I didn’t catch any fish, I don’t want that to reflect badly on how wonderful this place is (a ShareLunker was caught in 2010, albeit before the grass carp).  From the trails to the fishing to the proximity to the metroplex, I can’t think of a better place to get away for a long weekend.

This trip wasn’t entirely about fishing, but we did spend a good portion of Friday, Saturday and early Sunday on the water. I arrived to learn that my fishfinder battery was dead so my plans of finding structure in the middle of the lake (without the worry of someone running me over in a high-speed boat) were foiled, but there is quite a bit of standing timber and some friendly folks on the forums that tried to steer me in the right direction. I spent the majority of the time bumping a crank into timber, fishing a fluke and dragging a Carolina rig looking for fish. Unfortunately, I didn’t land one fish…some fisherman huh? 🙂 My wife did manage a catfish so the trip wasn’t lost.