Part One: The Best Spot For You
The amazing thing about the river and maybe all small streams is their sheer beauty. "Sheer beauty" is not such a manly description but I can't think of another way to describe the river.
I have canoed the Little Red River from the dam to the Ramsey Access, about 29 miles in all, and some stretches more than once. There seem to be distinct areas of the river that are different than others, similar in some ways and quite different in others. All great spots, but with advantages and disadvantages as compared to other spots.
Water clarity is better the closer you get to the dam, for several reasons, and I suppose that runoff is the major reason. A great example of this is one day after returning from an afternoon of fly-fishing up river I noticed, as I was making the turn into my slip, a couple of fish carcasses on the river bottom in about 12 feet of water. My first thought was that someone had cleaned and skinned some trout in their boat and threw the remains overboard (which is illegal). Then I realized that what I was looking at was a couple of beer cans.
I knew that the water was 12 feet deep because I could not reach them with the gig on the end of a 10 foot cane pole.
I was mad as hell that anyone would litter the river but in twelve feet of water I could read the label on the cans. Down river, below Pangburn, I could just barely see the bottom of the river using my 5 foot paddle to gauge the depth. But, the water did not appear muddy and the view downstream was just fantastic.
More on the differences, canoe access, and AGFA info in coming editions.
Posted by Howard Calhoun at howard.calhoun@crye-leike.com
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