Ascarate Park in El Paso Texas

Ascarate Park in El Paso Texas

Hi, and welcome to Living in El Paso, Texas. In this episode, we're going to talk about Oscarate Park and fishing in the desert. Hi my name is John Peña. I'm a real estate agent here in El Paso, Texas, and on this channel we talk about all things

eat, sleep, work, play in El Paso, Texas, an amazing community, a great city, and beautiful people, and there is a ton to do here, and that's exactly what this episode is going to be about. So, if you're interested in El Paso, about learning more, by all means, please consider

subscribing to the channel, click that notification bell if you'd like to know when new videos come out, which is every Saturday at least. And in this episode, when I first started this channel, one of the things, one of the reasons I said that I was going to move here is because, or that we wanted to move here

is because I wanted to still be able to do recreation, be outside, I've shared some of my experiences hiking, mountain biking, off-roading here, but Oscarate Park, where I'm at right now, is one of El Paso County's largest parks, and believe it or not, there is a huge lake here where you can go fishing, there's a golf course, a rec center, and so in this episode,

I'm going to talk all about Oscarate Park. So, this is Oscarate Lake, and this, you can, like I said, believe it or not, you can fish here, you can kayak here, there's a little boat ramp, I'm not, you do not, you can't have like ski boats or anything, so you can't get too crazy here, but originally, part of

a banco or river loop, or the Rio Grande, we're really close, actually, you're looking at where the Rio Grande would be if you kept going in that direction, you'd also then hit the border, go into Mexico, but this land was deeded to the county by the federal government after an International Boundary Commission rectification project straightened the river

in the early 1930s, so, now this is pretty amazing, so what you're seeing is, they removed more than one million cubic yards of sand to create the 45 acre lake, which opened in December of 1940, so, this lake wasn't, wasn't originally here, like I said, they came in back in the 30s, removed one million cubic yards of sand, it'd be really interesting

to know where they put that sand, but, and then they made this lake, so, this whole park and lake was named after the Oscarate family, El Paso area pioneers who owned a large ranch near the park, so, right now, everything's still kind of shut down due to COVID, and so, you know, it's pretty much just me here, but, even in the thumbnail, you can see some

pictures from, you know, pre-COVID, where people routinely fish here, catfish, bluegill, all sorts of, I think, bass, panfish, so, there's pictures of people, you know, doing what, you know, American families do, fishing with the kids, building those memories and all of that, so, I thought it was a pretty interesting place just to showcase, like I

said, fishing in the desert, you wouldn't think really was a thing, but, sure enough, here it is, so, that's Oscarate Lake. Alright, so, we got ourselves some real local fishermen here, Oscarate Park, what do you, so, you said that you've been fishing here for a little while, huh?

I did since I was a kid. Oh, that's awesome. I saw pictures where, like, there's, you know, families, and they, like, bring their kids out, everyone's, like, got a pole in the water.

Yeah. Awesome. What kind of fish can you catch in here? Well, right now, they're stocking it with trout, rainbow trout, but there's catfish,

largemouth bass in here, crappie. That's awesome. So, they do, so, they do stock this lake with fish? Yeah, they stock it in the wintertime four times with trout, and then, throughout the

spring and summer, they stock it with catfish and bass. Awesome, that's awesome. And, what are you, what are you going for here? Trout.

Trout. And, how do you, what do you got, something on the bottom here, it looks like? Yeah, I'm fishing on the bottom with a trout rig with fireballs. Okay.

It's been working really good out here lately. Alright. Can you, can you, do you have to catch and release, or? No, you can, you can catch and release if you want, or you can keep up to five trout.

Okay. I, I, the only fish I keep out of here is trout, maybe everything else I catch and release, just for the sport of it. Nice.

Yeah. And, you do have to have a fishing license? Yes, you do have to have a Texas fishing license, if you're 16 and above. Awesome.

How much does that usually run you? If you're a Texas resident, it costs $30 for the year, and it starts September 1st to October, to August 31st. Awesome.

Awesome. Appreciate you. Thank you. No problem.

So, that's a, that's a trout? A typical rainbow trout, yeah. That's awesome. It's about the same, about the usual size they stock, a little bit bigger.

Okay. Right on. Nice. Here.

That's awesome. Thank you. No, no problem. So, I wanted to get over a little bit closer on the other side of, side of the lake, and

actually, I'm not sure if you can see it, but the border wall is right there, pretty prominently. Those mountains, that is all Mexico. On the other side of the border wall, obviously, is Mexico.

The Rio Grande is there. So we're looking, essentially, into Juarez behind the wall. So, like I said, when I was explaining how this came about, how they actually straightened out the river that acts as our international border, that's when they also gave El Paso

all of this land on the other side of the border here, so just kind of for a little bit of perspective. And then if we pan this way, now I'm starting to look a little bit more west, and there are our Franklin Mountains.

So just so you kind of have an idea of where we're at there. So, just as a side note, I'm over here in Oscarate Park, and we have the El Paso Fire Department's training academy here, and so people are always asking me, you know, what are the job situations like, and my canned response is, they're not that great if you're

an unskilled laborer or worker, but if you're a skilled worker, they are good. They are great. So, for some folks I know are into either going into, say, a police academy or fire department, so here actually happens to be the fire department's training academy here

right by Oscarate Park. Okay, so, also, as you can see behind me, we, there's a golf course. So, I'm not exactly sure how many holes, I'm going to find that out, but there's a pro shop, golf carts, a little cart barn they've got, also they've got a driving range, so

this is a pretty, actually, pretty popular feature in El Paso. I know there are a couple of other golf courses, I've talked about the Coronado Country Club golf course, this one is a public golf course, so, you know, as far as fees and everything like that, this one is one of the more affordable golf courses to play in El Paso.

Awesome. So, here's a nice little layout of the golf course fees, so, summer hours, winter hours, right now the golf course is closed, but just to give you an idea, Monday, if you're walking, $12 all day, regular play Tuesday to Friday, $18, $22 to play on the weekends, some twilight

fees, seniors, juniors, they actually do golf lessons, you can rent a cart, $8 for nine holes, $14 for 18 holes, a range of buckets for the driving range, $5 for a medium bucket, $6 for a large, and you can even do a membership, looks like it's quarterly, rates cover green fees only, so, if you just want to play as much golf as you possibly can in a quarter,

three months, $215 for an adult, you can see the other prices there, college students, rates for vets, so, that's awesome. So, first responders, military active duty and retired, so, that gives you a nice little idea of what it costs to play at the golf course.

So, one of the other nice things about Oscarate Park is that there are a lot of sports fields here, so, we've got baseball fields, there are tennis courts, we've got playgrounds, soccer fields, you name it. So, one of the other great things about Oscarate Park is that it has an aquatic center with

a number of pools, like I said, right now, because of COVID, everything is closed down, but you can see they've got slides, they have lifeguards on duty, you do have to pay a small fee to get in here, so, it's not just totally free, disclaimer there, but like I said, there's pictures of, as you can imagine, families, kids having a fantastic time here, especially

in the summer when the kids are off of school and it's hot, this place is pretty hopping, so, thought it was pretty awesome, another example of one of the rec centers, this one having that aquatic center for you. So, this is a project that they're doing right now, it says, in collaboration with JAR Construction,

the county of El Paso brings a community healing garden, so, this is one of the things that I always say about El Paso that I love, is that they're constantly investing in the community, and again, sometimes folks will say, oh, I don't want to do this, I don't want to do this, and I understand that nobody likes to pay taxes, but property taxes pay for a growing

and vibrant city to be just that, to grow and sustain itself, so, this, I think, is a fantastic example of that, not sure exactly when this will be done, but, this is one of the things that I love about El Paso, it's a great place to be, it's a great place to live, so, this is a fantastic example of that, not sure exactly when this will be done, but

I also noted there's a lot of other construction back there, there was something about a racetrack, I'm not sure if that's going to be like a crazy golf court, golf cart, go-cart track, which would be awesome, so, plenty of hustling and bustling while the park is closed to the public, hopefully that's going to be over here pretty soon, but in the meantime, the

city is definitely looking to expand and improve the offerings at Oscarate Park.