Lake Lavon is easy to access from Dallas, Plano, and McKinney. Lake Lavon borders the eastern Dallas Metroplex and covers 21,400 acres with 121 miles of shoreline. The lake is dotted on its east side with the towns of Farmersville, Copeville, and Lavon, pius other smaller towns, and communities. You begin to see the provincial East Texas charm once leaving the DFW Metroplex around Lake Lavon. With plenty of beaches, campgrounds, hiking and equestrian trails - what’s not to love?
Four million people visit Lake Lavon every year. The lake is nestled in southeast Collin, County, Texas, on the East Fork of the Trinity River. City dwellers can escape the crowds to find 16 parks full of amenities and activities. The hiking trails abound with nature. Twenty marinas call this lake home. People commonly call the lake, Lake Lavon, but U.S. Army Corp of Engineers official name for it is Lake Lavon.
Flora and Fauna
You can see much more than native East Texas wildlife at Lake Lavon at In-Sync Exotics, home to tigers, lions, cougars, leopards, cheetahs, bobcats, lynxes, servals, and ocelots. Plenty of volunteers work at this wildlife rescue to educate and guide visitors through public tours for a requested donation. It sits right off of the southern shoreline a few miles east of Wylie, Texas Outside of the wildcats, documented wildlife sightings include black-tailed prairie dogs, bobcats, foxes, minks, porcupines, and river otters.
Birders can find common loons, American white pelicans, double-crested cormorants, tricolored herons, great egrets, black-crowned night-herons, white-faced ibises, wood ducks, marsh wrens, cooper's and ferruginous hawks, black-necked stilts, forster's terns, black-billed cuckoos, whippoorwills, belted and green kingfishers, woodpeckers, willow flycatchers, loggerhead shrikes, horned larks, red-breasted nuthatchs, brown creepers, northern waterthrushs, and common yellowthroats.
The landscape surrounding Lake Lavon consists of a mixture of marshes, moist woodlands, open woodlands, and prairie.
Fishing
Grab a your fishing poles, bait, and tackle, and head to the lake for a great time fishing. If you want to maximize your chances for the day (and not hassle with the bait and tackle), then hire a fishing guide. You will find largemouth (black bass), striped bass, white bass (sand bass), and yellow bass along with carp, blue, channel, and flathead catfish, white and black crappie, gar, and bluegill, readear, and warmouth sunfish. There are 19 four-lane boat ramps, so there is plenty of room to launch your fishing excursions.
Camping and Picnicking
There are 16 parks, 244 picnic sites, 19 4-lane boat ramps, 5 beaches, 71 tent camping sites with water, 167 camping sites with electric and water hook-ups, a handicapped park, and 6 group shelters for large group picnics.
Check out our Lake Lavon campground listings.
Cabins and Rental Homes
Lavon Lake packs a large wallop in a small area for Dallasites and suburbanites. Cabins and vacation home rentals have limited availability. On the east side of Lavon Lake, visitors will get a skyline view of Plano and McKinney. On the rest of the lake, people will feel more countrified. Many more rental homes exist in Plano and McKinney, Texas, a 20 to 30 minute drive from the lake. Prices range from moderate to expensive per night. You can have the city life at night and live the lake life by day at Lavon Lake at any of the rental homes. Book your Lavon Lake vacation home in advance.
Marinas
Three marinas call Lake Lavon their home on its east side. Take a look at the marinas on Lake Lavon to plan your day on the water.
Weather
Lake Lavon sees approximately 41 inches of rain per year and 232 sunny days per year. April, May, and October are the most comfortable months at this lake. Temperatures average out to a high in July at 94 degrees and a winter low in January at 33 degrees. Precipitation falls in the form of hail, rain, sleet, and about one inch of snow per year
Housing
The nearest towns and communities surrounding Lake Lavon are clockwise from the north end of the lake are: Princeton, Farmersville, Copeville, Lavon, Wylie, St. Paul, and Lucas. There are a few nightclubs and restaurants dotted around the lake located on the eastern and western sides. Shopping areas are best in Wylie and Farmersville on the northeast end of the lake, and a Walmart in Wylie.
Collin County, Texas, boasts upscale housing. There are few lakefront homes available, the price comes extremely high, and real estate is scarce with only about ten homes with a median price tag just under a half a million dollars and ten lots available at any given time . The nearest school districts are Community ISD, Farmersville ISD, Lovejoy ISD, Princeton ISD, and Wylie ISD.
List real estate for sale on Lake Lavon here.
History
The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers owns and operates Lake Lavon. It was designed for seasonal flood control of the rich bottomland and water storage. Construction began in 1948 and was completed in 1952 when Plano, Texas, was but a speck on the map supporting an agricultural industry, Richardson, Texas, was a sleepy suburb of Dallas, and there were no interstate highways. The U.S. Congress wisely modified the original plans to increase water storage and add a recreational purpose to the lake. The building boom Dallas in the late 1970s to the mid-1980s that created the modern profile people see today outside of the eastern region of Lake Lavon in Plano.
