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Spotlight on Caddo Lake: Visitors Guide, Boating, Camping, Fishing, Hiking, Wildlife and More!
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May 22, 2024
This video is about Caddo Lake on the Louisiana and Texas state line. Caddo Lake is legendary, and Simon shares with you reasons to visit, and what to look out for. In this video: 0:00 - About Caddo Lake 0:51 - Is Caddo Lake Natural? 2:48 - Who Owns Caddo Lake? 4:00 - Caddo Lake Scenery 4:39 - Caddo Lake Wildlife 5:42 - Kayaking Caddo Lake 6:10 - Camping on Caddo Lake 6:44 - Hiking Caddo Lake 7:22 - Hunting Caddo Lake Brought to you by LakeHub. We are sharing the joy of lake life! Learn more at https://LakeHub.com
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0:00
What's up everybody, it's Simon from LakeHub. Today's spotlight is on Caddo Lake on the
0:05
Louisiana and Texas state line. Caddo Lake is pretty big. It varies from 25,000 to
0:13
30,000 acres roughly. I mean kind of give or take. Kind of depends on how much
0:17
rain we've had that year, right? It's more of a bayou than a lake. Yes, you can boat
0:22
it. I'm standing right next to a boat ramp. There are boat lanes, but if you're
0:28
not familiar with it, it's definitely not a wide-open boating lake. It's a great
0:36
fishing lake and an awesome wildlife lake. There's some camping, but people
0:44
really come here for the nature of it, for the wildlife of it, more than the
0:49
recreation of it. Caddo Lake is very commonly known as the only natural lake
0:56
in Texas. Sort of. That's what a lot of people know it as. For a long time it was
1:04
but about a hundred years ago a dam was built. So it's technically not a
1:09
completely natural lake anymore. And the only reason it was a lake before, which
1:14
we're using the term lake semi-liberally here, is because of a massive log jam in
1:22
the river valley. And I mean massive. So we're talking about, you know, centuries
1:28
of build-up here, of backlog. Literally backlog. I wonder if that's where the
1:35
word backlog came from. It got so big that US settlers in the area started to
1:43
call it the Great Raft. And the federal government actually destroyed it in the
1:49
late 1800s. So it really is technically more of a bayou than a lake. So what's
1:54
the difference between a lake and a bayou and a swamp? So here's the
2:00
best definition I can figure. A lake has a clear dam-firm obstruction, not an
2:09
organic pile of wood. Okay? A bayou is a slow-moving body of water, probably more
2:18
on the shallow side. Okay? A swamp is just a soggy area. So it could just be like
2:29
saturated ground, muddy, that sort of thing. So some people call a bayou a
2:36
swamp, which I think is technically correct. You don't call a swamp a bayou
2:42
unless it has moving water. You wouldn't call a bayou a lake necessarily
2:48
although a lot of people I think do. Because of the natural nature of Caddo
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Lake, what's interesting to me is that, of course, all the water is public. We're
2:57
used to that. All of the shoreline is private. There is no Army Corps, there's
3:02
no water district that's managing all this kind of stuff. So all of the
3:07
shoreline is private. Thankfully some public land entities, like Texas Parks and Wildlife, have like thousands of acres of shoreline. So that helps keep it
3:16
natural. That helps give the public access to the lake, which is awesome
3:22
because there's tons of hiking and stuff around here. So here are all the entities
3:26
that are involved with Caddo Lake. This is pretty interesting to me. So I'm like a
3:30
government nerd. Alright, so we have... I got my notes here. So we have the Cypress
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Valley Navigation District, which manages the boat channels. You have the Caddo
3:40
Lake Levee District, which manages the dam. There's Texas Parks and Wildlife
3:47
which has Caddo Lake State Park. That's where I'm at right now. And then there's
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Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge, which is this massive area of just
3:58
preserve. What's most notable about Caddo Lake is the look. It's the scenery. This
4:07
is a really, really iconic looking lake. You see a picture of Caddo Lake, and if
4:13
you know it, if you've seen it before, you know it right away. I mean, it is... it's
4:18
just iconic. I think it's the best word to put it. You have these bald cypress
4:22
trees that grow in and out of the water. They can live in the water. You have
4:27
Spanish moss hanging off everything. This is late, late fall. We're going into
4:31
wintertime, and so everything's kind of gray. But when it's green, it looks crazy
4:35
There's just stuff everywhere. It looks really cool. The other thing that's
4:39
really, really remarkable about Caddo Lake is the wildlife. It is a biologically
4:45
dense area. Over 200 species of birds have been spotted here, 30 species of
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amphibians, 60 some odd species of reptiles, including gators. There's a lot
5:00
of animal activity here, a lot of wildlife. Bird watching heaven. Fishing's
5:07
fun too. It also makes it a really naturally loud area, just because of all
5:15
of the, you know, kind of birds and reptiles and everything. We're getting
5:22
into an area of the country where bugs are big and many also. So that kind of
5:30
contributes to the ambient sounds. Now right now, it's like kind of a cool, it
5:36
was cloudy. It's kind of great. Clouds are breaking a little bit. Soft breeze. It's
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pretty quiet, pretty chill. If you like kayaking, either for bird watching, just
5:46
for fun, for exercise, or for fishing, this lake is awesome for kayaking. Alright
5:52
again, it's not a wide-open boating lake. You can get on there and boat. You stay
5:56
in the lanes, you know, and get your bass boat. Something that's really shallow that
6:00
has like a really shallow draw. That's cool. But if you're a kayaker, this is
6:06
like a dreamy lake for kayaking. Really cool. As far as camping goes, there's
6:12
enough camping, you know. I mean there's, like I said, I'm sitting in a state park here. It's your typical camping. They have cabins. They've got, you
6:20
know, hookup sites, dry camping. There's some on the Louisiana side too. There are
6:25
campgrounds here. There are, you know, RV parks, like private RV parks off the lake
6:29
All around, like everywhere, there's a little tiny little private RV parks like everywhere. I passed a bunch just coming to the state park. If you
6:37
like camping, it's a really cool area. It's very unique. It's different. It's
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very Louisiana feeling. If you like hiking, there's some really cool hikes
6:48
like even like some boardwalks and stuff like that. In the state park here
6:52
there's a mile and a half loop. It's like real hilly and it's all through the woods. Looks really cool. Looks a little on the snaky side. It's like a single
7:01
track trail right now. It's fall and it's just covered in leaves. That looked
7:06
like timber rattler heaven and like copperhead heaven. So maybe like in the
7:14
wintertime. Just do your hiking in the wintertime. Watch your step. Carry a big
7:20
stick. That's my own professional opinion. At Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge
7:25
there is walk-in hunting. That's really cool. Archery for deer, archery for hogs
7:33
during the deer season. There's a youth and a handicap kind of special season
7:39
that you can apply for. But otherwise, that's pretty cool. It's, you know, it's
7:43
federally run. It's like walk-in and hunt. So if you live locally or you want to do
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like kind of a cool special trip, a unique special trip, you're a bow hunter
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that might be something you want to look into. If you like unique places to visit
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Caddo Lake has got to be on your list. Come on out. Check it out. It's an awesome
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trip. Tons of wildlife. Tons of scenery. I'm Simon from Lake Hub. We'll see you out there