lakes rivers
Morning on Caddo
Paddling the boat roads of the only large natural lake in Texas, where the map is a maze and the fog does not lift on schedule.
By Hollis Rains, Editor at largeApril 11, 2026 · 7 min read
There is a town on Caddo Lake called Uncertain, and the name is the most accurate piece of cartography in East Texas.
The lake is not a lake in the way Texans usually mean it. It is a flooded bottomland forest, 25,000 acres of bald cypress standing in tannin-black water, threaded with numbered channels that locals call boat roads.
“You do not get lost out here all at once. You get lost one correct-looking turn at a time.”
Go at first light with a rented kayak and a guide the first time. In April the prothonotary warblers arrive, small and absurdly yellow, and the whole swamp sounds like it is being tuned.
- caddo
- paddling
- east texas
- cypress
Keep reading