Copano Bay - Features

Features

Copano Bay is approximately twelve-by-six-miles, oriented from the southwest to the northeast. It is found mainly on undeveloped land, though ranches are located on parts of the west, south and north shores. The main extensions include Mission Bay, which stretches to the north to the mouth of the Mission River, and Port Bay to the west, which forms the southern boundary of the Live Oak peninsula. The peninsula is located on the eastern shore of Copano Bay and is lined with beach homes and residences, which begin just west of the inlet Salt Lake to the head of Live Oak peninsula at the confluence of Copano and Aransas Bay. This opening is spanned by the Copano Bay Causeway and the Copano Bay Fishing Pier, which once served as the main crossing to the Lamar peninsula. Holiday Beach is found on the northeastern shore of Copano Bay on the Lamar Peninsula. Just north of the community is the mouth of Copano Creek, which marks the bay's northernmost point. From here, the shoreline turns to the southwest past the Copano Bay Oil and Gas Field and four sloughs before reaching the ruins of the ghost town Copano at Copano Point, marked by white cliffs. At the point, the Copano Reef juts out almost halfway across the bay. Further southwest, past the mouth of Mission Bay, Bayside stretches along the coast to the mouth of the Aransas River. The shoreline turns to the southeast from this point, past the Egery Flats and Egery Island through Swan Lake and to the mouth of Port Bay.

The bay's maximum deapth is 3 metres (9.8 ft), and in contrast to nearby Laguna Madre, is not hypersaline. The Mission and Aransas Rivers are the main freshwater sources: small rivers with deep banks that carve through a landscape lined with hardwood trees. Their inflows increase during significant rainfall and reach their seasonal highs during the autumn. These rivers have not been dammed and thus flow free. At both mouths, marshes covering several square miles stretch from the confluences with Copano Bay and forming several saline lakes.

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