Lake Sam Rayburn is known for great fishing and is generally in the top ten fishing lakes in the nation.  Rayburn has many tournaments each year and is home to the largest amateur tournament each April, the Big Bass Splash.  Rayburn is also a great lake for water recreation as its wide open spaces and size make it a perfect lake for boating, water skiing, tubing, jet ski’s and just plain relaxing.

Lake Sam Rayburn can trace its roots back to a plan for flood control with power generation as a side benefit.  A project for three dams was planned, Dam A; Dam B and Dam C.  Dam A was to be called Rockland on the Neches River and was never built.  Dam B was built on the Neches and it’s power generation pool is known as Lake Steinhagen or locally as “Dam B”.  Dam C was built on the Angelina River and was named McGee Bend Dam.  Construction started in 1956 and was completed in 1965.  In 1961 Speaker of the US House of Representatives Sam Rayburn passed away and in honor of his service to Texas (1913 – 1961) and 17 total years as Speaker of the House, the McGee Bend Dam and Reservoir was renamed in honor of him in 1963.  Lake Sam Rayburn and Dam was dedicated in 1965 by Sam Rayburn’s long time friend President Lyndon Johnson by telephone.

Lake Sam Rayburn is the largest lake within the State of Texas.  It is approximately 79 miles long with approximately 600 miles of shoreline and at normal pool covers 114,500 surface acres.  The level of the lake fluctuates through out the year as the lake does it job of flood control.

We invite you to spend some time on the lake and enjoy the great outdoors of Texas!