Mile 347.2 - LBD Old Mouth of St. Catherine Creek

John Ruskey

20 Apr 2026 � 1 min read

347.2 LBD Old Mouth of St. Catherine Creek

The old mouth of St. Catherine Creek opens up here behind the very last island along the Opposite Esperance Archipelago. A thriving cauldron of decay and regrowth can be found behind the island in the fecund mud conglomerate of all the tributaries and lands upstream and let to fester in these shallow slow waters. Even during high water there is little flow here, allowing swampy growth to proliferate. Duck weed blooms in the summer, and the lakes further up the old channel of the St. Catherine Creek become a tempest of phytoplankton, eating the nutrients out of the overladen waters and feeding a frenzy of paddlefish and carp. This is one of the stewpots in the saving grace of the Lower Mississippi, where the river’s cleansing digestive system is operating in the way the great creator meant it to happen.

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