There's BASS in there!

Great video. It looks like you paddled back up to the dam to leave. How do you know the Corp of Engineers will not release water washing you further down stream?

It's not the COE release that might be the problem..
The COE releases water when the lake is above pool level and at the current time the lake is about 3 foot below pool level (low).

The Hydroelectric powerplant is the issue but not likely to run when demand for power is low. The danger is that the powerplant responds semi-automatically to power demands and will start generating with little notice and not to a scheduled timeframe.. The power company added a third generator a few years back and now when they generate power the flow through the turbines is big! The river level will jump two to four feet in just a few minutes and that is the part you must be prepared for..

We have kayaked back up a few times on those high flow rates so it is doable. But for the most part it is the wind that makes this trip a challenge.. For most of the spring-summer the wind blows out of the south, couple that with little flow to the river and it makes it harder to go downstream than to come back up !

But if you have the energy to paddle all day you can always do the full trip 8.5 miles down to Dick's Outpost and hope the south wind doesn't fight you all the way there!

http://www.dickscanoe.com/

The river has great fishing all the way down and beyond Dick's Outpost but for those of us that don't have the time or energy the first two miles is good enough as you can tell from the video.

Here's a sample of the high water fishing in the Brazos.

Fished there several times without incident. However, a buddy of mine was about 1/2 mile down when the horn sounded and was barely able to paddle back up to the parking lot. According to him, if you hear the horn the water is already on its way.

That info helps. I was originally wondering if you had access to a flow forecast or a generation forecast. I didn’t know that you could paddle back upstream if it was flowing.

you can receive flow data from the Brazos river authority. Unfortunately, they do not forecast when any dam will generate so you only know it when it happens., There is a sensor at the bridge below the dam at Dicks and I receive a text each time that gauge is triggered. You can also look at the flow historically and get a sense of generation frequency and duration and try to plan a trip accordingly. Here's a couple of links on river flow....


USGS Texas Water Dashboard....
https://txpub.usgs.gov/txwaterdashboard/index.html

Brazos River Basin flow rates