Pandale to the old Highway 90 bridge, and no road between
The float starts at Bed Rock Ford, the Pandale crossing, almost 60 miles north of Comstock on FM 1024, the last 15 of them dirt, with the nearest gas about 70 miles off and no cell service in the canyons. Marc McCord's Southwest Paddler log puts it at about 66.3 miles to the Seminole Canyon State Park ramp at the old US 90 bridge; a 2013 San Angelo trip report measured 55.3 miles to the Rio Grande. Either way, McCord says to plan four or more days, and he is plain that there are no mid-point access roads. The last 15 or so miles are Amistad deadwater, often into a south or southeast wind that the Park Service says averages 15 to 20 mph.
The take-out has gotten harder. Southwest Paddler says the water-taxi outfitters on Amistad no longer operate, so many parties arrange a motorboat tow for the last dozen miles, and NPS-licensed fishing guides may be available. NPS listed its Pecos River boat ramp as closed on September 24, 2026, though closed ramps can still be used for craft you can carry to the water. Canoes and kayaks need no Amistad Lake Use Pass. Del Rio is 40 miles from the take-out.
Rapids by the mile, and Painted Canyon
McCord logs Oppenheimer Canyon, Class II, at mile 7, and asks for extra care between miles 17 and 24. The busy stretch starts at 29: Bluff at 29, Still Canyon at 30.5, Lewis Canyon at 31.5 at Class II-III with an unnamed Class III boulder garden just below, Shackleford Canyon at 35 and Shumla Bend at 36.2. Painted Canyon at mile 38 is the one to respect, Class III-IV and about 125 yards, the most dangerous hazard on the run; it can be lined down the left bank. A mile later a weir dam holds a strong keeper hydraulic, so portage it on river left. Big Rock at 42.5 is the last rapid above the lake. Above Lewis Canyon, McCord notes, is Continental Ranch, which he calls the largest petroglyph collection known in Texas.
Two gauges, two different numbers
USGS 08447300 at Brotherton Ranch near Pandale is the gauge on this page. On September 24, 2026 it read about 35 cfs and had held between 32.7 and 37.9 for two weeks. The National Weather Service's Pandale Crossing gauge read 131 cfs at the same moment, and that NWS gauge is the one McCord's thresholds refer to: 200 cfs minimum, 300 to 1,200 optimum, 1,500 maximum. Do not apply his numbers to the USGS gauge, whose daily medians run only from 52 cfs in mid-July to 92 in mid-October. The 50 to 110 cfs band on this page is that USGS normal range, not a paddling recommendation. McCord's field test is better anyway: at the island near the put-in, water on both sides means go, one side means you will walk.
Much of the water comes from Independence Creek, entering above Pandale, which The Nature Conservancy says raises the Pecos's volume by 42 percent and cuts its dissolved solids in half; the USGS gauge above it near Sheffield read 6.84 cfs that morning. Floods here come fast. The NWS gauge's major flood stage is 15 feet, it crested at a preliminary 15.93 feet on July 18, 2026, and its record is 43.9 feet in 1954.
Gravel bars are yours, the ranches are not
Both banks are private ranchland and there are no public or private campgrounds on the run. Texas law lets you boat, wade, camp and fish on a navigable stream, confined to the water and the streambed, gives no right to cross private land, and offers no clear right of portage. So you camp on gravel bars within the bed and get on and off only at Pandale and the take-out; the 2013 trip report says a landowner who once allowed a take-out near mile 39 stopped after a lawsuit. Amistad National Recreation Area reaches 14 miles up the Pecos, and inside it shoreline camping is allowed away from developed areas, glass is banned, and you pack out solid human waste.
Fishing follows statewide regulations on the Texas side, with a Texas license: five black bass a day at 14 inches for largemouth and smallmouth, 25 channel and blue catfish with no more than 10 over 20 inches, and five flatheads at 18 inches. Crockett and Val Verde counties sit in TPWD's western bait zone, where the only baitfish you may use or possess are common carp, fathead minnows, gizzard and threadfin shad, golden shiners, goldfish, Mexican tetra, Rio Grande cichlid, silversides and sunfish. Fishing Mexican water at the lake end needs a Mexican permit for everyone in the boat.
Catfish, bass and salt: what a line will find
Set expectations low and pack accordingly. We found no TPWD survey of the river itself, so the best evidence is the reservoir it feeds, where TPWD calls largemouth the most abundant sportfish and channel and blue catfish present in good numbers with an occasional flathead. The Pecos is salty: Castaño de Sosa called it the Rio Salado, and a 2013 account says it supplies 11 percent of Amistad's inflow and nearly 30 percent of its salts. In 1985 golden alga, which blooms in salty inland water, killed an estimated 110,000 fish along the Pecos, the first confirmed golden alga kill in the Western Hemisphere.
A catfish rod with cutbait for camp and a light bass rod for the rock pools is the realistic kit. TPWD's Amistad advice carries over: topwaters, buzzbaits and spinnerbaits early and late, crankbaits along rocky banks, rigged worms and grubs at midday. Go from April into early June or early October to late November; McCord warns of low water and headwinds in midsummer, and Seminole Canyon's July average high is 98.