After running a shuttle, Sam and I unloaded, prepped and got on the water at about 9:15 AM.
Another Tough Put-In – Swing Bridge River Access at Caddo Gap
The put-in was a somewhat strange configuration. You get in your boat and float, but then you have to decide whether you are going left or right (there is no current to give you a hint). Only one way takes you to the river. We chose poorly and had to retrace and then walk our boats through some gravel and grass to the river, at the same time avoiding the large, healthy cottonmouth swimming toward us.
Getting to the river from the put-in – Sam is just about to the Water Moccasin in this photo
The Swing Bridge – in far worse condition than the “pre-Colombian art” in Romancing the Stone
It was a beautiful morning as we started paddling.
Avoiding rocks and gravel bars were our biggest challenges on this low-water trip
Our wildlife count was pretty good – starting with the aforementioned cottonmouth, we saw egrets, great blue herons, a juvenile little blue heron, blue jays, osprey, hawks, black vultures, crows, cardinals, turtles, trout, bass and a bald eagle.
Toward the end of our paddle, we witnessed a National Geographic demonstration of the food chain. We correctly identified an osprey as it was circling overhead. It dove and came up with a large fish. Pretty cool! It struggled to gain altitude with its prize when a bald eagle came from out of nowhere and started chasing the osprey and its fish. The osprey was screaming as it circled and dodged, doing aerobatics with its fish, trying desperately to stay out of range of the eagle’s talons as the black vultures watched the contest from above. The eagle flew in formation behind the osprey, sometimes edging a little closer. After a few minutes of this, the osprey finally dropped his fish right in front of us. The eagle dove for the fish as it was falling, but broke off when it saw us, and flew into a nearby tree to wait for us to leave. Quite the air show for those of us fortunate enough to have simply shown up at the right moment.
And the wildlife just kept coming. After the reverse shuttle, on the way home, a deer ran across the road in front of Sam, and then one ran across the road in front of me, and then several more ran across the road behind me.
One of my hitchhikers
See photo album Caddo River - Caddo Gap (Swing Bridge) to Glenwood