Caddo L 805 WMA Launch

kayak map route trail Caddo, Uncertain, 805 WMA Launch www.SawdustRiver.com

Kayak route trail map launching out of the 805 WMA ramp off Highway 43 near Uncertain, Texas. The intent was to explore the cypress swamp in Back Lake and eastward towards Clinton Ditch, following the shorelines of Horse Island and Goat Island as much as possible, ultimately making a loop back around. If you click and expand the map it looks like the red route line is just scrawled in. But, while drawn by hand, it is based on lots of phone pins set during the paddle. So it’s really close to the actual path. The yellow points labeled ‘oops’ are where I went wrong or got confused and had to backtrack. It is often possible to kayak through the greyish-purple treed areas on the map that are tracts of cypress forest. It’s not land and its not open water, and it may be a jumble, with cypress knees and all sorts of debris, downed trees, alligator weed, salvinia, and hyacinth. But you can slowly work your way through some of those areas. Which is interesting. So if the red route line goes through the trees and the jumble then that’s about right, that’s where I went. And there were some connections in the area just north of Clinton Ditch which go east out to Clinton Lake; I hadn’t been aware of or taken those channels before, very cool. Saw one owl, one otter, one water snake, one alligator, and one large beaver. And a couple of terribly loud airboats. All in all a nice swamp paddle, with effort required to push through, but not too bad. Fun trip, about 1.5 mph, slow progress.