Palmetto State Park

This week, we headed down to Gonzales, TX to drop off my oldest son for a week long camp.  On the way home from dropping him off, my younger son and I decided to spend the day at Palmetto State Park.

Palmetto State Park, located a little over an hour south of Austin, is probably one of the smallest state parks we have been to, but we both still had a great time.


There is a small, 4-acre oxbow lake with canoes, paddleboats and paddle bikes for rent.   

On the lake is a fishing pier with a ladder just perfect for jumping off and swimming! K met some new friends and spent a few hours swimming and exploring the lake!  

There is also a short 3/4 mile trail encircling the lake.  We saw some deer and other wildlife on our short hike.

We also tried our hand at fishing, but didn't catch anything.  We were going to try again at dusk, but I couldn't pull him away from swimming.  

Around mid-day, we left the lake to explore the rest of the park. 

We have slowly been collecting the various Texas State Park geocaches, so we wanted to pick this one up.  

As usual, the geocache led us to some really neat sights that we would have otherwise missed!  


Palmetto State Park is named for the tropical dwarf Palmetto trees that grow abundantly in the swamp like grounds.  

We started our hike on the Palmetto Interpretive Trail and found this amazing water tower built by the CCC in the 1930s and still functioning today!

We continued along the trail to the Ottine Swamp Trail to find our geocache. Who knew there were swamps in Central Texas??   While signing the log, my son found this little guy!

Just down the road from the trails is a low water crossing of the San Marcos river.  K and I hung out in the cool current of the river until it was time for dinner!  The park rents tubes (or you can bring your own).  Since we had the dogs with us, we couldn't take a ride, but if we come back, we are going to definitely try the tubes out!

We had originally planned on spending the night camping.  But after being away from home for the last week on vacation, we decided to pack it up around 8pm and head home to sleep in our own beds.  K decided that this was a perfect park for a day trip!!

Fishing at Mary Moore Searight Park

Mary Searight Moore Park, located in South Austin near I-35, is a pretty fun park in Austin with something to do for everyone!  

It has a nice playground, 
a fun disc golf course, 
basketball courts, 
a one and a half mile loop for running or walking, 
and many more great trails for walking your dog (or horse!)



However, the hidden gem of this park is located in the far South corner, where Slaughter Creek runs along its edge.  This creek is supposedly known for good bass and perch fishing.

The boys and I pulled our gear out for the first time this summer, and decided to give it a try.   

We parked in the main parking lot, and then hiked the distance to get to the creek.  

While it was a nice hike, it turns out that there are some closer areas to park, if fishing is all you are interested in. 

From Decker Prairie road, the creek is less than a half mile!

We followed the paths (generally just heading south) and finally came upon the creek. 

There is a small fishing pier perfect for fishing from. 

The trail then hikes west following the creek.  

We stopped at many points along the path to try our luck!  At one point, two geese started honking at us.  

We, of course, honked back :o)

Whether you are interested in fishing or hiking, it is a really an enjoyable trail!

Heading back east along the trail, the stream has a sort of dam, and then trickles along until it runs into another spring.  

At that point, the creek widens again into another pretty pond.

While we were completely unsuccessful in catching any fish, we had a really nice hike and a good time!

Tips and Thoughts
* I did see a lot of dogs along the path.  The front half of the park was pretty populated and most dogs were on leash.  Towards the back, with fewer people, we did see a few dogs run wild

* Bring lots of water, the path is sunny and hot!

* Note the parking tip above - if you want a quick trip to the creek, you might not want to park at the main entrance, but instead try the Decker Prairie Road unofficial side entrance!

Decker Lake

K has really gotten into fishing recently and we were looking for a different lake to try out.  A couple of online sites with information about fishing with kids recommended trying Walter E Long Lake (previously and still locally known as Decker Lake.)

 The only other time I have been to Decker lake was for a triathlon a few years ago.  Then, I hadn't really been focused on the fishing :o) So this was a sort of new place for us!

Overall, the lake isn't incredibly pretty.  It has a left and right wing, with picnic tables and shore access to the lake and in the main area there is a boating dock and fishing pier.  I didn't notice any restrooms.

From previous experience I know that the area around this lake (skirting the exterior of the park) is very nice for bike riding.  The roads are wide and there is a very little traffic.  There is a nice ten or so mile route around the lake that is scenic and enjoyable.

While the lake touts that swimming is available, the shallow mud would make for a pretty squishy wade, and I'm not sure it would be my top pick of swimming holes.

But, the lake is stacked with bass once a year, so there is a chance of snagging a larger fish to take home.  Though, to be honest, I haven't a clue what I'd do with it, if K ever did catch a big fish! ;">

After we drove around a bit, we decided to try out the pier and docks.  K did manage to catch a total of 10 perch (or bluegills or whatever small fish they were) in about three hours, so he was thrilled!  We chose not to take any home with us :o);

Overall, I'd say this lake is a nice place to fish, bike ride or boat, but I don't know that I'll be adding it to my top 50 list!.

Gone Fishin' - Southeast Metropolitan Park

As I have always said: I love fishing.  It's the catching I don't like.  But K has been begging me to take him fishing and after four cub scout day camps, I felt ready to take it on myself. But, I must admit, there was with some fear in my heart as we headed out early one morning last week. 

I did some online searches, and found that the Southeast Metropolitan park seemed like it might be the place to go.  It has two ponds stocked with fish accessible via a short trail. 

Early that morning K and I headed into Wal-Mart, purchased a cup of worms and a fishing license for me and then headed just east of the airport.

We found the primitive trail head at Southeast Metro Park fairly easily, parked the car, and started down the trail.  It was about a fifteen minute hike down the trail to the first pond, including a water break halfway through on a conveniently placed bench.  When we got to the first pond, we prepared our rods, and confidantly cast our worms.  Immediately our bait was taken.  We re-hooked another piece of worm, and cast again.  Gone.  Lather, rinse and repeat.  I still am not sure how those darned little fish kept taking our bait, without biting the hook, but they did so for over an hour. 

Somewhat frustrated, we headed two minutes down the trail to the next fishing pond.  This one had a covered pier.  Again, there were lots of small fish right under the pier that loved stealing our bait, but nothing hooked.  We still had a great time, enjoyed the morning breeze, the gorgeous scenery and had the pond almost completely to ourselves (just a few joggers passed us by). 

But after a fruitless hour, we somewhat dejectedly decided to call it quits and head home.  As a last ditch hope, I convinced K to try one last time at the first pond.  We threw our lines into the water and within two minutes, I had hooked our first fish.  Then K caught one.  Then K caught another.  Then I caught one...  All in all, we caught 16 fish in less than an hour.  They were all bluegills and ranged in size from teeny tiny to pretty hefty (for a bluegill).  It was very exciting and fun!

So, from my first trip fishing, here is what I learned:  I brought along gardening/work gloves, and these made de-hooking the fish a lot easier.  I would strongly recommend bringing a pair!  We used both worms and corn as bait, but the fish seemed to prefer the worms.  We did learn to only use a small piece of worm; the bigger the piece, the more likely it was to just get stolen.  We also learned to thread our worms up the hook (with the hook through the mouth) rather than piercing the worm.  This seemed to prevent the fish from stealing our bait. 

Other things that were helpful:  hat and sunscreen, water bottles, extra hooks and scissors (just in case we had an irretrievable snag) and of course a camera to capture our captures.  Things I wish we had brought:  wipes to clean our hands.  (Yuck!)  Fortunately, there was a restroom located conveniently near the head of the trail that we used to rinse off afterwards. 

Things we might not have needed:  the huge assortment of fake lures we had in our tacklebox, the corn (worms were plenty) and one of the rangers indicated that I might not have needed to purchase a fishing license.  He said since the pond was catch and release, he didn't think it was necessary.  He said I could call Travis Country Parks and Rec to verify this.

Overall, this was a great summer adventure!!