Houston -

This past week, Matt Nelson drove a two-wheel-drive pickup to a spot on Mad Island Wildlife Management Area, a 7,200-acre tract of coastal marsh and prairie in Matagorda County, stopped, got out and took a couple photos of the acres of bare, drought-blistered and cracked ground surrounding him.

"I wanted something to show some folks just what we're facing," said Nelson, a wildlife biologist who heads the Central Coast Wetlands Ecosystem Projects for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's wildlife division.

The spot where Nelson stopped was in the middle of Brandt Lake, a leveed reservoir that, in most years, holds a couple hundred acres of freshwater in which grows a healthy crop of submerged aquatic vegetation that attracts thousands of wintering waterfowl and is one of the most popular and productive spots on the WMA's public hunting area.

"Where I stopped the truck is usually thigh-to-waist-deep water," Nelson said. "That's what we're looking at."

That he could drive a heavy truck on the lake's desiccated bed without fear of getting stuck speaks volumes about the depth of the drought that has brutalized Texas for the past year and the impact it will have on the millions of wintering waterfowl and the waterfowl hunting seasons that open Saturday in most of the state.

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