Camping on the toon

My wife and I have been preparing our pontoon for camping on Texas lakes. Would like to hear about any nice lakes for such a adventure.

Hi there Fredboy. Thanks for your question. My family and I have tried a couple of places that worked out ok.

I have a couple of questions for your first.

1. Where are you close to?
2. Do you plan on sleeping on your boat?
3. Do you plan on putting it on the beach or doing it at anchor?

I have done a little of both, but my favorite is to do it on anchor in a cove. Reason being, no spiders or snakes and no worry about the wind coming up and banging me against the shore.

But if you have a nice sandy beach and it appears to be a calm night it is great to just beach it on the sand.

We have tried Martin Dies State Park Resivor (a 6 on a scale of 10)

My favorite was actually Lake Bastrop (near Austin) because it has cabins.

Lake Livingston State Park was also pretty decent.


Look forward to hearing the answers to your questions.

Here are some pictures from Martin Dies

Matt
We are in the DFW area. Yes we are going to anchor in a cove and sleep on the boat. We are just waiting for the heat to let up a little.

I will do a special post on that area, I went there in June of 2009 with the a group of Boy Scouts. It is a nice lake with lots of sand bars and beaches. Plenty Deep with boat ramps, and a marina with fuel on the water. (It is about an hour and 1:10 mins from Fort Worth).

If you are going to use an anchor, make sure you have one that sets well so you don't wake up in the middle of the night and find you have drifted toward a rocky beach.

My favorite anchor is the 14# Delta Plow fast set anchor. I got at west Marine for about $100. I have used and tried several different kinds including the cheap traditional Danforth anchor, but it had a hard time setting. I did some research and found that the Delta Anchor is one of the top 5 best anchors you can buy (the three above it were almost $500) so it is the best anchor for the price.

Here is the link to it in case people are not confident in theirs.
http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=11151&partNumber=318040&langId=-1

Here are the test results:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anchor_Test_Results_Chart.svg

Hello ..
I plan on camping on the 'toon after my return from Fairbanks, AK.
I bought 2 cheap air matress' from Walmart, the twin size, and I can piut them between the bunks and all on the toon. I am also experimenting with a back pack tent, it should fit between the bunks. It has netting over it, and a rainfly in the event of rain, plus my mattress should fit in it.

Plans were to do that this weekend, but since I will be gone for 20 days in August, I will wait until I get back.

I boat at Lewisville Lake, 15 mins to get the boat from dry storage, and be in the lake.

Ron

Has anyone tried the "Box Anchor" It sounds really good but I would like to hear some real life comments. TIA
www.slideanchor.com

fredeboy wrote:My wife and I have been preparing our pontoon for camping on Texas lakes. Would like to hear about any nice lakes for such a adventure.

We're going to Lake Buchanan for the first time this weekend. Hopefully, I'll have a good report to give you next week. Spent quite a bit of time on Travis, but too many partiers for me. The sunsets on those Hill Country lakes make the trip worth while.