GChiker

Wondering if anyone knows of any nice rivers or streams around a hundred miles south of Dallas/Fort Worth that make for decent kayaking? We live ten miles out of Comanche which is halfway between Stephenville and Brownwood.

toejam

There are a few. The Brazos and Colorado should be within easy reach. Check out this great web site (click on Texas):

http://southwestpaddler.com/

GChiker

Thanx, toejam. For some reason, my browser reports a DNS Lookup failure when I try to go to that site. I'll check out those two rivers. I think the Brazos is west of Albany, where my wife and I went through high school ever so long ago.

EDIT: The Brazos looks good. Can we put in at Lake Granbury and take out at FM 200, just SE of Rainbow? Do you have any special runs that you would recommend?

natureboyhays

The Brazos is also very pleasant from Whitney Dam to Waco, though it gets a little sluggish approaching Waco (go figure...hehe). Most of the way should usually have a good current, with a few mild rapids, but it's probably low due to the drought. We did that stretch when I was a kid in Boy Scouts. For probably 25 miles or so below Whitney Dam the water was nice and clear, with springs here and there along the way. Even where it was deep you could see pebbles on the bottom. Of course this was about 30 years ago:rolleyes: . Hopefully it's still nice.

toejam

CG, try the link again or just type in the address. Below Lake Granbury is tons of houses, a huge gravel pit and a power plant. The F.M. 200 bridge was recently rebuilt to remove all access to the river (the bastards!). It's a lot quieter below Glen Rose. My favorite part is from Possum Kingdom dam to Mineral Wells. You can get Rochelle's at F.M. 4 bridge to help shuttle. Water flow is an issue - it's easy in a kayak with at least 100 scfs. But it's generally doable in a flat water kayak any time because there are no notable rapids and you can cover the long flat sections easily. You'll just have to get out and drag regularly when it's low. I think it sucks to canoe the Brazos - good water flow is rare so you have to muscle through the wind and flat sections. Lots of great sandbar camping.

I check water flows from this site:

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/tx/nwis/rt

I need to get below Whitney Dam sometime.

Electric Water Boy

Even if you don't fish you might want to check TexasKayakFisherman.com