Lake Amistad in Del Rio, Texas

[rpaxton]

AustinSouthSide,

I am not familiar with any PWC rentals in Del Rio, but I will ask dad if he knows of any.

[kana12]

stay away from mexico for sure.. they are wacking people left and right right now.. in fact id bring a pistol for sure. im being completely serious im not just joking around. and anyone that tells you that its rumors or im lieing hasnt been to south texas much.. we hunt alot

[formandfunction]

Definitely post some pics. I live about 7 hours away in Oklahoma and I am always looking for a good lake to experience. I want to figure out if it is going to be worth the drive. I am curious if there is some good water there or is it rough and not good for boarding?

I think its a bit more than seven hours.

[RL987]

By far my favorite lake in Texas. I have been going there for years to fish and now I have a place down there in the river part. Some friends have gone to make some some good videos. Never rented a boat to stay on. One thing to watch out for is the wind can get tough there since it is huge. We are having our Bash on the Border there in May. Never taken my Tige there but might this year.

[rpaxton]

Probably not a bad idea to have some firepower for protection. I have not heard of any cartels using the water yet, but you don't want to be the first statistic in the drug war!

It can get windy so take the wind advisories seriously. I have also seen lake Travis in Austin get pretty nasty with the wind, too.

[bagzzz]

All of this is great to hear - good fishing, calm water, clear water... I am moving into laughlin this summer! I cant wait to go out every day.

[Guest]

Thanks for all the feedback. We are super excited about this trip. I am glad I have plenty of fun stuff to do between now and then because I would be going crazy otherwise! And one of the guys that is coming is license to carry, so we are covered on the protection side of things. And we are staying clear of the Mexico side, we will stay up on the Texas side near the devils river. I will probably start a new thread on houseboats tips as we get closer to June.

[murphini]

Are you planning on towing your Tige or having someone drive it behind/next to the houseboat? We did 2 houseboat trips in the late 80s at Lake of the Ozarks. What a blast. This was when the Party cove was just getting started.....before it became a modern day gamorrah.

[Guest]

I am on the fence on that, may not be worth it to tie it up and tow, may just have my buddy cruise next to the houseboat with the Tige. I am guessing we will probably just head out the first afternoon, pick a cove about 10 miles away and then stay there the three days. Are there any tricks to towing with the houseboat? I have heard horror stories on here about sinking Tiges while towing on the big lakes out west. We defintely have enough able bodied boat drivers to drive both.

[ImaPigDog]

We have rented many houseboats over the years. If you have capable drivers, drive them both separately.

[rpaxton]

All of this is great to hear - good fishing, calm water, clear water... I am moving into laughlin this summer! I cant wait to go out every day.

Bagzzzzz,

I am sorry to hear that you are moving out there. There is nothing in Del Rio but Lake Amistad and Acunia. If you need any info about the town or needs let me know, Dad has lived there for about 18 to 20 years now. I can probably get the info you need from him!

What will you be doing for the air force? IP?

Rodg

[RL987]

There are painted caves up the Rio you can see that are pretty cool since they are very old. ot for sure about the Devil's River but get you a map of the lake and it has points marked for that kind of stuff. Nothing like cruising through water you can see 20+ feet between 100' cliffs.

[bagzzz]

Bagzzzzz,

I am sorry to hear that you are moving out there. There is nothing in Del Rio but Lake Amistad and Acunia. If you need any info about the town or needs let me know, Dad has lived there for about 18 to 20 years now. I can probably get the info you need from him!

What will you be doing for the air force? IP?

Rodg

I am going down there for Pilot Training. I should only be there 18 months, some of which will actually be spent out of state for TDY stuff. I know Del Rio is not the biggest town with much of anything to do, but at least there is a lake that gets great reviews! About the town - what are the good neighborhoods to live in? I still have not decided if I am going to live on or off base...

[Paublo]

You could do a lot worse than Del Rio. For a wakeboarder, it would be hard to find a better AFB- very close to a lake, nice clean water, warm weather means a long season, and not too much boat traffic. Laughlin also has an arrangement where you can leave your boat in a slip or in a locked storage area next to one of the ramps for not much $. The base also has boat rentals. My impressions from the visits there is that the closer you are to the lake, the better or nicer the neighborhood (also more expensive). My son-in-law did his flight training there and then stayed for 3 more years as a trainer. They stayed on base, but liked the whole area. First thing they did was find a nice cheap used Nautique. The base housing has gone private, so that may not be still such a good thing. Again, if you have a boat you'll love it- but if you don't, it could be a long 18 months.

[Guest]

Got back from the Lake Amistad Houseboat trip last night, what an amazing experience it was! Lake Amistad is SO beautiful. Thanks for all your tips in this and the other houseboating thread I started. It was a great time had by all even with a few challenges along the way (a few detours, thinking we kille the houseboat and blowing to the shore, a trailer tire blowout on the drive home). Driving the houseboat was interesting, manuvering into coves was not bad at all but on the longer rides holding a straight line in the wind was tough. Not surprising, that thing is a giant 65 ft sail. The biggest highlight was an area called the "flats" way up the devils river arm of the Lake. It had a limestone, flat bottom so the water was superclear and greenish blue. The pics really do not do it justice. Surfing that section was so cool, the wake looked amazing. I wish I had a waterproof camera to take some pics while surfing. Then there was a stretch where it was 10 ft deep and you could see the bottom, so cool to chill and swim there. I will come back with a lessons learned writeup at some point in the near future. If you guys have any questions about Lake Amistad let me know. We will definetly go back, possibly an annual thing. Trying to get the photobucket pic thing to work, will be posting pics this afternoon.