Cypress Black Bayou Hwy 162

The northwest Louisiana region has so many nice places to paddle its amazing. One such spot, depicted in the kayak route map above, is the Cypress Black Bayou Reservoir/Lake. Another of the many ‘black bayous’ that are all over the place. This area is only an hours drive from the Texas Caddo area, and about 10 miles north of Shreveport. The put-in for the paddle is the Highway 162 Boat Ramp. The red lined route in the map is just a jumble of try this, try that, go here, go there. It initially heads north into the bayou as far as possible but, since it’s not a huge area, it also explores many of the available side channels and takes a short loop around a few islands in the lake itself. A cool overcast day, perfect for a paddle. Any route will be about as good as any other here, it can be made up on the spot. Great place, and even a few rookeries if you can find them. There may be a fee or permit required at the boat launch, but I can’t recall if it applies to paddled boats or not.

Above: Very green, and some channels like this were blocked.

Above: Down towards the lake.

Above: Some side channels were blocked by trees.

Above: Paddling through a connection between two channels.