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Another solution to the monotony of the long-distance paddler is a stop on Catfish Point Bar. If the weather's calm, and you need a good rest place to stretch you legs, pull into Catfish Point Bar. It can be a long paddle getting into this giant sandbar from
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Cypress Bend is perhaps the most perfectly formed bend on the Lower Mississippi. The river flows in perfectly due west out of Catfish, and then carves a perfect semi circle around Cypress, and then exits perfectly due east towards Eutaw and Choctaw below. Alas, its also one of the most
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During the Great Flood of 2011 the entire Mississippi River violently whisked around Caulk Neck Cut-Off and was concentrated into a mess of swiftly sliding boils and extreme river eruptions past Catfish Point and into Cypress Bend. Writer Hodding Carter and I ran the river from Memphis to Vicksburg as
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As you round Prentiss Bend and continue downstream, past the mouth of the Arkansas River you will find a long skinny sandbar that stretches up to five miles long at low water around Monerrey Bend. At medium water this becomes a 2-mile long island that you can duck behind (but
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The best camping in this section of river is found along the Arkansas Bar which parallels the main channel for five miles (at low water) as the river swings out into and then through Rosedale Bend. Arkansas Bar ends at the mouth of the Arkansas River. At low water fascinating
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For main channel visual relief you can enter the back channel behind Cession’s Towhead above the 616.1 light and follow it at first Easterly and then North-easterly one mile and then around the backside of the island for a southerly run back to the main channel. This is
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[CLICK HERE: Map of Paddling Past Island 69] [CLICK HERE: Map of Island 69 Circumnavigation] Island 69 is an archipelago of Islands which inhabits the inside a long bend of the river, its pieces running seven river miles downstream of Knowlton, Cessions Towhead on one side, the bottomland fields and
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Not surprisingly the river is forever trying to break through its banks at Wood Cottage and below. In the twenty years of paddling this area I have seen countless bank stabilization projects and watched the river swallow up everything left by man, one season removed, the next season replaced by
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Designated Left Bank only because the center line of the river crowds the Arkansas shore around Wood Cottage (619.6). This resplendent sun-drenched island sits middle river with big flowing channels on either side, a very deep main channel that gets crushed towards the shore and a shallower back channel
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Following the main channel past Mellwood Lake the river is thrust outwards by a prominent point below the 624.8 light for a crossing back to the Mississippi side. If you maintain this channel you will enjoy a fast ride on a boiling tongue of water past an eddy below
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There is a series of sandbar islands that have grown up along the lower end of the Sunflower Dikes. When the river is below 20HG you can make an easy picnic stop on the last of these but beware any approaching storms for there is no protection of any sort.
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(Note: closed since the 2011 Flood, but supposed to reopen in 2012). There are hot showers and other camper conveniences at Great River State Park, but be aware that the park is built for vehicle access, not river access. This is not a good place to put-in or take-out unless