Boat Docks & Piers
Residential docks kept at or under 1,500 square feet to stay outside LCRA permitting, laid out inside the 35-foot reach limit and built to the Highland Lakes safety standards.
Lakes We Serve · Burnet & Llano Counties, TX
Boat docks, boathouses and shoreline walls on Inks Lake.
Eight hundred acres of clear water between Buchanan Dam and the granite hills — with the tightest dock limit on the Highland Lakes, a rock shoreline older than almost anything else in Texas, and one narrow window each drawdown year to work in the dry.
The Permit Reality
Two LCRA regimes — and the first one does not cover the second.
Inks Lake has no city and no Corps district office issuing individual permits. LCRA holds a lakewide permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that most routine work runs under, with Burnet County or Llano County handling land-side building permits and floodplain review.
The dock rule is generous. LCRA requires no permit, no registration and no fee for a residential dock of 1,500 square feet or less. What the dock must do is meet the Safety Standards for Residential Docks on the Highland Lakes — flotation, lighting, access and anchoring — and respect the reach limit. On Inks Lake a dock may extend no more than 35 feet from shore, the tightest limit anywhere on the Highland Lakes, and only where an additional 40 feet of lake access remains beyond it.
The lakebed rule is not. Anything that touches the bottom falls under the Highland Lakes Dredge and Fill Ordinance, effective January 1, 2022. It sets Inks Lake's regulated pool elevation at 888 feet msl and defines Fill as “any material, structure, wall, rip-rap or revetment below the Regulated Pool Elevations of the lake” — which is exactly what a bulkhead, a retaining wall or a riprap revetment is. Owners who read the dock rule and stop there are surprised by this one.
The Ordinance is tiered. Dredging under 500 cubic yards and disturbing under 500 linear feet of shoreline is Tier I: written notification to LCRA Water Quality, no permit — P.O. Box 220, Austin, TX 78767-0220, 512-578-2324, or online through MyGovernmentOnline. Hit or cross either threshold and it becomes a Tier II permit, with public notice, financial security and a formal review.
The Ordinance also dictates how the work is engineered. Shoreline stabilization has to be designed against erosion, slump, sliding, structural failure, wave overtopping and flanking erosion, and any dredged or filled area has to be graded to blend into the existing bottom contour. Repairs to existing retaining walls and maintenance dredging can run under LCRA's Corps of Engineers lakewide permit instead — but only if the work is registered with LCRA before it begins.
What You Actually Hit
A billion-year-old shoreline.
The rock at the Inks Lake waterline is 1.3-billion-year-old Valley Springs Gneiss and 1.1-billion-year-old Town Mountain Granite, exposed right where a structure has to land. Texas Parks & Wildlife describes numerous rock piles, ledges and chunk-rock banks; the fractured, layered formations make for irregular shorelines, boulder piles and submerged ledges. Water runs clear to slightly stained, with no significant aquatic vegetation.
1
Driven pile is not the default
On most Texas lakes a piling goes in the ground. Here the ground is granite. Foundations get planned around anchoring into or founding on rock, and that decision comes out of a site visit and probing — not a template carried in from another lake.
2
Short walls, more rock work
Because the bank is already rock, Inks Lake rarely calls for the long runs of bulkhead you see on a soft-bank reservoir. The work skews to shoreline access, riprap where a bank is failing, and structures founded into ledge.
3
Irregular frontage, custom layout
Ledges and boulder piles mean the usable water in front of a lot is rarely a clean rectangle. Within 35 feet of reach and 40 feet of remaining access, the dock layout is a fitting exercise, done against real soundings.
Scope of Work
What Shoretech can build on Inks Lake.
A small lake with limited, expensive frontage. The work is precise rather than large.
Boathouses & Covered Slips
Covered structures and lifts founded on rock, detailed for a lake that holds its level within about a foot year-round.
Retaining Walls & Riprap
Shoreline stabilization designed against erosion, slump, sliding, wave overtopping and flanking as the Dredge and Fill Ordinance requires — with the Tier I or Tier II route settled before work starts.
Precision Dredging
Slip and access dredging graded to blend into the existing bottom contour, sized deliberately against the 500-cubic-yard and 500-linear-foot thresholds.
Water Level & Timing
A constant-level lake with one calendar that matters.
LCRA gives normal elevation as 887.7 feet msl with a target operating range of 886.9 to 887.7 feet, and Texas Parks & Wildlife lists about a foot of annual fluctuation.
Published elevations differ slightly depending on who is publishing them — LCRA's 887.7 feet, the Texas Water Development Board's survey conservation pool of 888.22 feet, and the 888-foot regulated pool the Dredge and Fill Ordinance works from. For design purposes the practical point is the same: Inks holds close to full almost all the time, so a fixed pier or a fixed-height wall can be built tight to the waterline. Levels do vary considerably during flood passage from Lake Buchanan upstream, which is the case a structure has to survive.
The planned exception is the LCRA maintenance drawdown. LCRA drops Inks Lake roughly 8 feet for about eight weeks starting October 1 in drawdown years — it did so in 2020 and again in 2025. That window is when wall repair, slip dredging and dock foundation work can be done in the dry, and on a lake this small it is worth building a schedule around. Because the exact depth and dates are announced case by case, the honest planning approach is to have the design, the LCRA notification or permit, and the crew ready before the announcement, not after.
35′
Maximum dock reach from shore
888′
Regulated pool elevation, msl
4.2
Miles long, Buchanan Dam to Inks Dam
1938
Year impounded
Around the Lake
A quiet lake, and a short list of places on it.
Inks Lake State Park borders roughly a third of the eastern shore and holds the lake's only public boat ramp. There is no public marina, and much of the lake is a designated no-wake zone.
Towns and nearby communities
- Buchanan Dam
- Burnet
- Llano
- Kingsland
Parks and access
- Inks Lake State Park — two-lane concrete ramp, park entrance fee
- Devil's Waterhole
- Longhorn Cavern State Park, just inland
Inks Lake impounds the Colorado River behind Inks Dam, about four miles below Buchanan Dam, and is small and largely unincorporated — there is no city on it. LCRA and the Texas Water Development Board place it in Burnet and Llano counties, while Texas Parks & Wildlife lists it under Burnet alone. Surface acreage is published three ways: 788 acres in the TWDB 2007 survey, 798 by LCRA and 831 by TPWD. Maximum depth is about 60 feet. Total shoreline mileage is not published by any of them; LCRA gives the lake as 4.2 miles long and 3,000 feet at its widest.
Questions We Hear
Inks Lake FAQ.
Do I need an LCRA permit for a dock on Inks Lake?
Not for the dock itself, if it stays small. LCRA requires no permit, no registration and no fee for a residential dock of 1,500 square feet or less. It still has to meet the Safety Standards for Residential Docks on the Highland Lakes, and on Inks Lake it may extend no more than 35 feet from shore — the tightest limit on the Highland Lakes — and only where an additional 40 feet of lake access remains.
Does a retaining wall or riprap need a permit?
That is the second regime, and it catches people. The Highland Lakes Dredge and Fill Ordinance, effective January 1, 2022, defines Fill as any material, structure, wall, rip-rap or revetment below the regulated pool elevation — 888 feet msl on Inks Lake. Dredging under 500 cubic yards and disturbing under 500 linear feet of shoreline is Tier I: written notification to LCRA Water Quality, no permit. At or above either threshold it becomes a Tier II permit with public notice, financial security and formal review.
Can you drive pile on Inks Lake?
Not as a default. The shoreline is 1.3-billion-year-old Valley Springs Gneiss and 1.1-billion-year-old Town Mountain Granite exposed right at the waterline, with rock piles, ledges and chunk-rock banks. Structures here are planned around anchoring into or founding on rock rather than around driven timber or steel, and that decision is made at the site visit, not in the office.
Will Dave travel to Inks Lake?
Yes. Shoretech is based in Trinity and works across Texas and western Louisiana, and Dave travels as far as a project warrants. Call 936-662-5100 to talk through access, rock conditions and the drawdown schedule for your frontage.
Nearby Water
The rest of the Highland Lakes.
Start With a Conversation
Planning a project on Inks Lake?
Tell Dave what the rock does in front of your lot, how much usable water sits inside 35 feet, and what you want to be able to do at the shoreline. The foundation approach and the LCRA route follow from that.