Dallas area boating lakes?

[zimm17]

Doing some long term planning with my wife for when I retire out of the Navy in 8.5 years. She's from Texas and wants to settle in Dallas. From google maps it looks like there are a few Donzi friendly lakes in the area.

Anyone have any insight on the area? We'd most likely be working downtown- the thought hit me that we could get a modest house in town for work/school, and a place up on a lake for a weekend getaway that we can keep the Donzi and all the toys. Not sure which lakes you can have a dock/boat house, or if you need to keep boat at a marina in a slip with a lift, then get maybe a cheaper waterview house.

[Viperfitness1]

man there are a lot of great lakes in the area. i think you will have fun at just about any one you choose. i like texoma but its closer to me and has a good mix of people. party if ya wanna party and chill at the dock if you just want to hang out. navy huh? im an old air force guy myself. maybe we can race boats to see which branch is better?!?

[Apple a day]

You can have a dock on Cedar Creek plus we have a boat club.

[TxHawk]

Originally Posted by Apple a day

You can have a dock on Cedar Creek plus we have a boat club.

And great boat ramps!

[TexomaPowerboater]

Lots of good lakes in DFW, Texoma will fit the bill and then some. All natural sand beaches make this place an inland paradise. 22ft boat might be a little small as it does get rough. You should be OK 80% of the time. My old 24/7 boat would handle it 90% of the time. Ceder Creek lake, Lewisville lake, Lake Ray Hubbard......6300 lakes in TX. Hell there's more shoreline in the state of OK, then all of california. Texoma is the biggest in both states.

We have a lakehouse on Texoma with doc and all. Pretty sure you can have a private doc on most all the lakes. Whether or not the house has a sheltered cove or not is the only problem. We keep ours at a marina year around and at the private boat house for weekends only. Much more secure from theft and high winds in the marina. That and all my maintenance is just a phone call away. During spring and fall we have wind gust that can reach 80mph. I've seen entire wave breakers made for the ocean bust in half on Texoma. We usually see atleast one occasion per year where an entire marina slip has been picked up and turned over.

[bert4332]

What's great about the Dallas Lakes is that each lake has it's own personality. Lake Lewisville is the party lake, and I mean INCREDIBLE party cove, over 250 boats on any given weekend during the summer. But with that comes a crowded lake, with a LOT of kids drinking. Two docking restaurants and lots of ramps.

Lake Ray Hubbard is decent if you're going to living in East side of Dallas, not my favorite, I don't like the ramps personally it's a great large mouth bass fishing lake. They just built a dock adjacent to a nice strip of decent restaurants. The problem is there is only about 8 slips.

Lake Ray Roberts is an awesome family lake, great ramps, fishing, restaurants and about 10miles of straight. My favorite, even though I live on Lake Lewisville, I spend a lot of time on Roberts.

Texoma, it's has everything, it's large for Texas, actually bring a map or a gps because you can get lost very easily. Due to it's size it can get a good chop as TexomaPB stated. I go up there due to my spouse's uncle only lives 1/4 mile from the lake. You can find long strips of calm behind an island and then be in 3 ft chop in the main channel.

Cedar Creek on the south side, never been there yet, it's one of my first stops this year. I heard nothing but great things about it.

Lake Murray OK. about 2hr drive North of Dallas, it's not real big, but it's clear, with about 15-20ft visibility in some parts. Now that's pretty damn good for a lake. It's a very deep lake about 90ft so the water stays pretty cool, which is nice when it's 95 out.

Anything you need else, just ask.