Clyde Lake levels surge, bringing business & new faces

CLYDE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) – Big Country residents are now taking the opportunity to check out some of their favorite watering holes after recent rainfall has drastically increased lake levels. With more rain on the way, it’s likely we will see more people packing up their gear and heading to the water.

A recent flush of rainfall has seen the levels at Clyde Lake rise an astonishing seven feet. The rise is so significant that lake officials are now allowing boats out on the water. City of Clyde Interim City Manager Rodger Brown explained how these higher lake levels are beneficial for Clyde’s reservoir supplies and help bolster the town’s economy.

“We’ve got our Airbnb; we’ve got our four cabins out here. A lot of people will come out and rent those. While they’re here, they’re buying gas at our service station. They’re eating in our restaurants,” Brown explained. “We’ll take all that visitor money we can get.”

While Clyde Lake has many summer season regulars who frequent the lake, the rise in the lake’s level has prompted some new faces to come and check it out for themselves. Jim Moore usually frequents the waters of Lake Brownwood but was having his boat worked on at a local shop in Clyde. He said he didn’t even know that Clyde Lake existed until the shop workers told him, and he decided to take an impromptu trip to check that his boat was in working order after the repairs.

“I was leaving, and he said, ‘You’ve got to go to Clyde Lake.’ And I said, ‘Clyde’s got a lake? Is it worth going to?’ He said, ‘Yeah, it’s got fish in it.’ So I’m thinking, Well, I want to try the boat out. That’s just a few miles away from where I’m at, and it’s on the way to Brownwood, so that’s why I’m here. I never saw it before. It’s not a bad-looking lake,” Moore shared.

Recent rain has raised the levels at Clyde Lake to just three feet shy of the spillway line. With another round of rainfall expected for our area, the lake could reach full capacity.