Dagmar Trip Report

[kru1]

Just recently returned from two different floats in the Dagmar WMA. It was wonderful and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys nature, solitude, and scenery.

Originally we had intended to do one whitewater float on Friday and a blackwater float on Saturday. Heavy rains put all the rivers in flood stage on Friday, which changed our plans to two blackwater floats. We had heard about the new canoe trail on Hickson Lake, so we thought we would check that out.

We arrived in the Dagmar WMA just before dark on Thursday night and found a place to camp. It is first come first serve primitive camping, but it was free and beautiful right off of Robe Bayou. We got to meet one of the volunteers (Mickey) on Friday morning as she saw our canoes on the cars and wanted to see if we were floating the new trail that she is helping to blaze.

We put on the lake around 12:00 and the level was around 16.55' and rising. We explored the lake for a while and then headed to the south to pick up the new canoe trail. It was well blazed and easy to follow even though you are weaving in between Cypress and Tupelo trees. After about a mile we ran into the crew working on blazing the trail. We had heard of a rookery to the east and asked them about it and they said to just head east and we would find it. We paddled easterly for about an hour and did not see land once. The place is rather large. Eventually we came to a bunch of drift logs which were actually nurse logs for a diverse plant community or resting spots for passing water snakes. Then we found the rookery which was huge. I was thinking a tree or two full of nests, but it was an area of 2-5 acres with tens-hundreds of nests. Pleased that we found the rookery we decided to head southwest and search for the canoe trail and the I-40 crossing. We found both with ease and eventually made our way back to the take-out/put-in. Paddling upstream was not difficult as the flow was slow.

Day two: we floated a different section on Bayou De View from Hwy 38 to Hwy 17. We thought that it would be very similar to the Hickson Lake area, but we were pleasantly to learn that it wasn't. We loved our backwater float the day before, but change is always nice. This was an area with many lakes, which really had the feeling of a wide river channel, broken up with canoeing through cypress and tupelo. There was flow the entire time, and we could easily discern the direction we needed to go. However, there were several times that log jams brought us of course, but we always made our way downstream. We did manage to get briefly off course on section between Blind Lake (I named it this as there was a duck blind there along with ~50 decoys) and Mill Lake, but we quickly got back on course. We had lunch on river left at the first old railroad trestle, which was a great spot. The only portage we had came at the second railroad trestle. There was a river-wide log jam with the trestle, and we couldn't find an alternate route (though one may exist). We portaged on river left and it was a piece of cake. The rest of the float was relatively easy, in my opinion pretty hard to get lost. Wildlife abounded on this section. Deer, squirrels, ducks, birds were everywhere. In all it was about a 10 mile float that took us a little under 5 hours.

It was a great trip and highly recommended.

kru

[DeBo]

Thanks for the great trip report! I am really glad that you liked the area. I love it and will be glad when we her the trail signed all the way down, so I can share it with more people.