Lake Travis approaches record low

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Amid an extended drought, Lake Travis continues to drop to historic low levels. Travis is now at 631 feet relative to sea level. That is 50 feet from full and just 17 feet shy of the all-time low set in 1951.

Avid fisherman Jeff Draper took KXAN Austin News for a trip across the lake or, as our KXAN Reporter David Scott likes to refer to it as "Travis Creek."

"I never go out on the lake without my charts to find the deep river bed, and my depth finder," Draper said. "There are many sudden dropoffs and hazards hidden now just beneath the surface."

Cars and motorcycles have turned up on the emerging rocks. So has a ranch hand's old home and many trees and cement blocks. The all-time high level on the lake was 710 feet back on Christmas Day of 1991.