Degray day trip 6/19/2010

[vtsquid]

Hay all

The girl, dog and I are going out on the Lake Degray to paddle the canoe around all day. We are going to launch from the ramp at the end of Red Wings road which is off of 84.

We are lake paddlers by nature, (thats what I grew up doing in New England) We plan for short swim brakes and fallow shore line looking for wild life and looking at the geology of the land. We usually canoe between 6 and 8 hours, maybe more maybe less, and try to stay away from where the bigger boats like to hang out.

So far confirmed in our group are, us... haha, but a few friends may meet us there, two or three more canoes other than us. We would love to meet more paddlers of any kind, kayaks or canoes... They are all boats to us

Plan on meeting at 9am at the launch, if you want to show up later or earlier we can some how connect to meet up some where on the water
e-mail me if you like @ bpgalante@gmail.com

hope to see you out on the water

Bryan

[vtsquid]

Little update on the trip for this coming Saturday
two canoes, 5 people 1 dog, plans still the same!

[Jim Krueger]

Hey Bryan,

I have lived near Lake Degray for many years and think it's such a great place to paddle! I'm not familiar with Red Wings rd. but figure the area you plan to float is somewhere in the vicinity of Big Hill Creek, Beaton Creek, Lennox Marcus, etc. on the North side of the lake. Many areas along this side of the lake can provide some decent paddling/exploring away from the main power boat crowd.
One suggestion I would offer is to put in at Amity Landing and paddle the two miles or so up to the very upper end of the lake where the Caddo River enters. This stretch has some very nice scenery and wildlife viewing possibilities, also some just great swimming places. Better yet, I really like putting in at the Hwy 84 bridge on the Caddo and making the trip down to Amity Landing, 4 miles of the Caddo and two miles of the lake, an easy trip and no power boats at all for the majority of the trip. With the recent flood however, just be mindful of any trees down on the river, they should be easy to portage as the river is back down quite low now.
Have a fun trip.


Best Regards
Jim

[vtsquid]

Hay thanks Jim for the info

Red Wings putin/road is east across the lake from Shouse Ford Use Area, Looking over the map, I chose this one because it is a small landing so it should quiet, its also around 4 or 5 miles (as the crow flys) to the shallower parts of the caddo. We are not putting into the caddo because of the flood, I would rather paddle up to it and take a "look see".

I did talk to one of my coworkers here at the power plant, he fishes Degray alot and fishes up in the area we are going, he says it really nice and usually quiet, but the fishermen do like that area of the lake for the same reason we are going to use it.

Mainly this is an exploring trip and to take out some friends who are trying to get back in to paddling. So if we make it far we make it far, if not we turn around, drop them off and go in the other direction till we get tired.

Thanks again for the input!!!
Bryan

[dan valovich]

Lennox marcus is my back yard.
Wake boats are the biggest problem you will encounter, but you will hear them coming for several miles because of there overpowered loud stereo and bad music. I live on big hill creek and it has gotten to were we don't take the dogs swimming because of the size of waves being generated. other than that it is a pretty lake with no houses on it.
There are alot of heron roosts there and should see some osprey. bass and stripers breaking early and late. lake levels were in the buckbrush last weekend.
If you get out of the canoes beware of chiggers!! They are mean this year. Some had a party in my shorts last weekend and I didn't go in the woods.
Hard to get out of the sun so don't get fried

[vtsquid]

Thanks dan for the info!
Paddling tomorrow

[Jim Krueger]

Bryan,

How'd the trip go?

Jim

[vtsquid]

Well the trip was a good trip, lots of "stuff" happened, My friend launched off point ceder, not where we launched so we finally met up with him around 11 maybe, I was not looking at the time. Carrie and I got all the way up to Amity Landing which was cool, It was getting late so we turned around and headed back.

On the way back Carrie lost one of her gloves, so we turned around, before we turned around, I was standing up paddling and she said "oh S***, I lost a glove, so I turned around and made the boat super unstable, and fell/jumped out of the boat... needless to say we never found the glove but I did not swamp the boat

Then we got to the island across from shouse ford area and we swapped so Carrie could practice steering for a while. That worked well until I snapped my paddle in half... So she got a great crash course in solo paddling.

We did have a emergency paddle like we should, but in my hurry to extend it, I pulled it apart... :roll:

So Carrie solo paddled us in, Luckily we where really close to the car when I broke the paddle, then she soloed around the area where red wings road put in is, for 30 min or so and we went home.

time in the water 0930, time out 2000 (8pm), 10+ hours of canoeing, and Carrie looked up the distance and thinks we went around 20 miles

I think it was a great trip!

[vtsquid]

little confusing on the clove part and me exiting the canoe... :roll:

So where that house that sits on the cliff, thats where we lost the canoe, I was standing up paddling the canoe, we crossed the lake heading back to red wings landing, when we got to the point where the sting of orange buoys are, she noticed she lost the glove. Not thinking I turned around to see if I could see it... made the boat super unstable and I just jumped to hopefully not swap the canoe and possibly dunk everything else!

It was alot easier to get me back in the canoe rather than me, the dog, carrie and all our stuff that was not lashed down

after that we turned around and looked for her glove but never found it

Oh well, that means she gets new gloves

Still had a great time tho!!

[Jim Krueger]

Bryan,
That was a good report! You both sound like you enjoyed the day. Please do join us sometime on the Caddo, I think you're more than able paddlers.
We'll look forward to meeting you all in the coming year! Please consider joining us and other club paddlers at the Surf & Turf at Rockport later in the Summer, it's good food, fellowship, and a shuttle thrown in.


Best Regards
Jim

[vtsquid]

Cool thanks jim!
Yeah we did have a great time! And we are looking forward to meeting people to go paddling with, we are going to the cental club meeting tonight! So hopefully we will meet some people there!
thanks everyone for being so kind its really nice to meet good people with the same intrests! See ya all on the water
Bryan

[Lupe]

Nice to meet you Bryan and Carrie at the meeting tonight! Hope to see you on some water soon!

Cheers,
Heather (aka Lupe)