>Can someone give me some information about the San Marcos Richard, The San Marcos River comes out of the ground crystal clear, but it doesn't take long for man to change that. By Luling it has a distinct greenish tint - kind of an algal soup. But fishermen tell me that this isn't all bad - the turbidity makes it harder for fish to see your line and so forth. And the fishing on the river is generally considered pretty good. Several folk (who do a lot of fishing) have told me that they think it is one of the best fishing rivers in Texas. It may be that it produces a lot of fish for the people who fish it because it is so hard to fish. Most whitewater paddlers aren't known for their fishing skills. To successfully fish the river does require a good bit of canoeing skills regardless of the stretch of river selected. If your plan is to end up at Palmetto Park, keep in mind these problems: 1) the put in at IH 10 is not an easy one - and I certainly don't recommend it. To use it you would have to carry your canoe a long way, cross at least one barbed wire fence, and then probably have to rewire your vehicle once you get back to it (at least one paddler has returned to his car to find the coil wire missing). 2) the closest upstream put in is therefore at the Luling City Park, immediately downstream of Hwy 80. It involves sliding or carrying your canoe down a steep, concrete and rock lined "path" to the river through a healthy crop of poison ivy. We have launched from this spot many times, so far with no damage to the vehicle left behind. The police reguarly patrol the park. It is 14.2 miles from this point to Palmetto Park - so it does make for a pretty long fishing trip. It's probably about five miles from City Park to IH 10. 3) just upstream of Palmetto Park you will have to portage Ottine Dam. This dam has a bad habit of sneaking up on people. The police chief from San Marcos drowned here a couple of years ago while paddling the river in flood stage. I would not recommend paddling the river in floodstage - in fact, you'd probably want to avoid any flows over 1000 cfs. Since the drowning, some Water Safari racers have marked the dam with some yellow signs, but extreme caution should still be used - signs have a bad habit of disapearing sometimes. The best portage is on the river left - but it is a mite strenuous. 4) you'll probably have to deal with a few logs here and there, some of them may be in fast current. and 5) there is one "rapid" several miles below IH 10 that a lot of people mistake for Ottine Dam. It appears to be an old rock dam with a race arround the left side. It is generally runnable except in very low water flows. The old low water bridge at Palmetto Park is the best take out or put in, but it is not without its problems. The State, unfortunately, mounted an eight inch pipe a few years ago to the upstream side of the bridge that makes it pretty much impossible to safely paddle up onto the bridge at moderate water flows. Before the pipe addition, you could usually paddle between a couple of the cement blocks on the top edge of the bridge, at least far enough to stabilize the canoe. Now you have to get out on either the right or left side and make sure your canoe doesn't get swept broadside and then under this historic structure (we have tried to get the state to remove the bridge and perhaps build a suspension bridge for folks to access the other side of the park, but have been told that it is an historic structure). If you choose to put in at Palmetto Park, it is 7.5 miles to Sladen Cemetary bridge (cr 232). The take out there is worse than the put in at Luling City Park, except that there isn't any broken up concrete to get your footing on (just mud) and of course the fact that you'll be going up instead of down. It's another 8.7 miles down to the Hwy 90 A bridge in Gonzales and the take out there is a slight improvement (get out on the river right). These stretches of river can offer some nice long logjams. Some of them will be floaters that you have to carefully drag your canoe over without falling through. Last year during the Safari, Mike Shively almost met the big checkpoint judge in the sky when he got sucked under one of these floating jams and did some time there. As far as floatability level, that's a pretty subjective thing. I think you could enjoy the trip even if the river is only flowing 100 cfs, but a lot of folks would want more water than that. Obviously, the lower it is the longer it will take and the more portages you'll have. High water gives you a free ride, but it can also add to the excitement level. As I said before, unless you like paddling floodwater, I would avoid anything over 1000 cfs, and realize that anything over 500 cfs is gonna be a fast river. I'm afraid my whole account sounds pretty bleak. And I suppose it sounds bleak for some good reasons. These stretches are not all that user friendly. The put-ins are as bad as the take-outs. You will encounter fire ants, poison ivy, snakes and all those other bad things that you can avoid by taking up ballroom dancing. But on the other hand, the river does offer solitude. You won't have to deal with a bunch of tubers, or even whitewater paddlers. You might see a Safari team (depending on what time of the year you paddle this section - by the way, you should avoid the second weekend in June). You will see a lot of birdlife, wildlife, and quite possibly fishlife. Let me know how the trip goes.
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