Lake Buchanan
A 22,000-acre LCRA reservoir at the top of the Highland Lakes chain, the largest by surface area, with a genuinely rural Hill Country setting, excellent striped bass fishing, and dramatic drought-driven water level swings unmatched by the lakes downstream.
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Lake Buchanan sits at the top of the Highland Lakes chain in Burnet and Llano counties, formed by damming the Colorado River. The Lower Colorado River Authority began dam construction in April 1931, suspended work in 1932, resumed in 1935, and began impounding water on May 20, 1937, with the reservoir first fully flooded in 1939. At roughly 22,000 acres, Buchanan is the largest Highland Lake by surface area, though Lake Travis downstream holds slightly more total storage capacity.
Buchanan sits at the top of a chain that flows down through Inks Lake, Lake LBJ, Lake Marble Falls, Lake Travis, and Lake Austin, all covered elsewhere on this site. Unlike those downstream reservoirs, Buchanan carries essentially no flood-storage cushion above its conservation pool — once full, floodwaters pass straight through toward Lake Travis, which serves as the system's primary flood-storage reservoir instead.
Burnet, Buchanan Dam, Tow, and Kingsland ring the shoreline, giving buyers a genuinely more rural, less developed setting than the Austin-adjacent lakes further downstream, with extensive LCRA parkland occupying a meaningful share of the shore.
What Buyers Need to Know First
The single most important fact for buyers: Lake Buchanan experiences genuinely dramatic drought-driven drawdowns unmatched by the other Highland Lakes. The all-time record low of 983.7 feet, set September 9, 1952, sat roughly 36 feet below full pool, and more recent droughts in 2011 and 2022-23 pushed the lake down more than 20 feet at times. Confirm current conditions directly before assuming a listing's photos reflect today's water line.
The second piece is dock design. LCRA allows the largest standard dock extension of any Highland Lake here — 150 feet from shoreline, and 200 feet in shallow coves — specifically because docks must be able to reach the water across this reservoir's unusually wide operating range.
The third piece is the fishery. TPWD rates Buchanan's striped bass and white bass fishing excellent, alongside excellent catfish, making this reservoir a genuine standout among the Highland Lakes for anglers specifically targeting stripers, which are stocked here annually rather than naturally reproducing.
Everything We Cover on Lake Buchanan
Independent research across every topic Lake Buchanan buyers ask about — Burnet and Llano county tax math, dramatic drought drawdowns, LCRA dock design, and which nearby community actually fits you.
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