The Augusta area is home to an expanding assortment of outdoor recreation opportunities.

The Augusta Canal National Heritage Area, designated by Congress in 1996, extends more than eight miles from the headgates in Columbia County to the interpretive center at Enterprise Mill, a restored 19th century textile complex in downtown Augusta.

At the headgates, you can hike or walk along the towpath where mules once pulled barges along the canal, or launch your kayak or canoe into the canal or nearby Savannah River, which foams over the river's last remaining expanse of rocky shoals.

A bridge over the canal and stairwell to the river offer easy access to visitors who launch canoes and kayaks.

Birding fans can watch wintering waterfowl, wading birds and the occasional bald eagles that linger in the treetops along the river each January.

At the canal interpretive center in the renovated Enterprise Mill downtown, visitors can explore the canal's rich history and tour the waterway in Petersburg boats that were built to resemble the famous vessels that hauled freight up and down the river more than a century ago.

Also in Augusta, Phinizy Swamp Nature Park, established a decade ago by Southeastern Natural Sciences Academy, offers several miles of trails, an interpretive center and education programs and excellent opportunities to observe coastal plain wildlife, including the American alligator.

Across the river in North Augusta, the Greeneway network of bicycle and walking trails winds along scenic riverfront for many miles.

If you want more remote wilderness, huge portions of Sumter National Forest are within a 30-minute drive from Augusta and even closer for many Columbia County residents.

The newest amenities in the National Forest include the Forks Area Trail System in Edgefield County, S.C., with more than 35 miles of nationally ranked mountain bike trails.

Thurmond Lake, a half-hour's drive from downtown, includes 70,000 acres of water and more than 1,200 miles of shoreline, with dozens of campgrounds, more than 30 boat ramps and five state parks.

On the Georgia side of the river, the Department of Natural Resources oversees huge wildlife management areas that are open to public hunting and fishing and popular with hikers and bird watchers.

The Augusta area includes an abundance of public lands with ample deer and turkey hunting opportunities.

Those areas include the 7,800-acre Yuchi Wildlife Management Area near Waynesboro, Ga.; Tuckahoe Wildlife Management Area near Sylvania, Ga., with 15,105 acres; and Clarks Hill Wildlife Management Area near Thomson-Appling, with 12,700 acres.

FISHING

The No. 1 freshwater fisheries destination for most Augusta-area anglers is Thurmond Lake, a 70,000-acre U.S. Army Corps of Engineers impoundment 25 miles up the Savannah River from Augusta.

Thanks to a reciprocal agreement between Georgia and South Carolina, residents of both states can fish the lake with their home state's license.

Anglers can fish for striped, hybrid and largemouth bass, black and white crappies, bluegills, shellcrackers, white perch, and monster flathead, blue and channel catfish.

The Savannah River beckons to fishermen, especially below Thurmond Dam during the late fall and winter, when yellow perch spawning runs occur. Anglers can fish from a revamped platform below the dam on the South Carolina side or from boats anchored below the dam's towering superstructure.

Just above downtown Augusta in the Savannah Shoals, anglers can wade and flyfish among ancient boulders for redeye and smallmouth bass, in addition to more traditional species such as bluegill.

The New Savannah Bluff Lock and Dam, about seven miles below Augusta, becomes a magnet for fishermen from mid-March through June during the American shad's annual spawning run.

In other times, river fishing is excellent for bream, shellcracker, redbreast sunfish, crappies, largemouth bass and mullet, the latter coming up from the ocean to spawn.

Anglers who don't own a boat can rent one or fish from the bank in one of 20 Merry Land Brickyard Ponds southeast of Augusta's city limits off Molly Pond Road. Some ponds have been in existence since the early 1900s, but even some of the newer ponds offer good fishing.

Just up Highway 78 near Dearing is the McDuffie Public Fishing Area, operated by the Georgia Wildlife Resources Division.

Several ponds offer good fishing for largemouth bass, bream and channel catfish.

A wildlife management area permit is needed to fish there, in addition to a Georgia license.