Mile 389.0 - LBD Rodney Lake Side Trip

389 LBD Rodney Lake Side Trip

When the water is around 30 NG or higher you can cut through the intriguing opening at the topmost Cottage Island, around mile 389 left bank descending, and enter the deep woods surrounding the back channel of Rodney Island No 111. Enter at your own risk. Once you start down this channel you are committed to a fifteen mile route that changes slightly from year to year, and is crossed in one place by a low bridge (paddlers take warning!). As it approaches the top end of Rodney Lake, the main channel (of the back channel) branches off into a wetland distributary field, like the bronchi of the lungs, where fingers of flowing water spread out in many directions into the flooded forests and overflowing banks. This remnant river-connected wetlands is one of the best examples of the pre-levee health of the river (the other great example being Forest Home/Paw-Paw Chute/Old Yazoo wetlands above Vicksburg). It’s easy to lose your way or end up in a dead end waterway. Then again, you can turn around almost anywhere along the route and paddle back up to where you started at the big river. Good place to use your GPS if you have one.

Paddle quietly, or float along the gentle current for the best wildlife viewing imaginable. Canoeists and kayakers in this area have snuck up on buck deer nestled down along the scrubby bank for a mid-day nap, coyote swimming across the chute, and even black bear peeking out through the trees. Pileated woodpeckers (North America’s largest) flit back and forth laughing when the land, and songbirds fill the air with their sprightly ditties and dirges in the spring migration. Kingfishers might bark out when you enter the sections of the muddy bank they have claimed for their own, but also might reward you with daredevil dive bombs into the muddy waters. Wind your way deeper and deeper through dense stands of classic primeval bottomland hardwood forest, eventually the channel goes under a low bridge (beware!) and enters the top end Rodney Lake down a long curving channel lined by big willows. The land drops away gradually as the channel widens, and the forest eventually becomes flooded, and then you find yourself in the lake. Yellow rocket are thick in the spring and in the winter willows are some of the last trees to lose their leaves. Follow the lake westward, and then northwest, and then north. This is the shape of Rodney, a classic oxbow situated with its ends to the north. The inside of the lake is lined by endless walls of willow, arranged neatly in horizontal layers as long as the sky. The outside bank (to the south and then west) climbs higher and higher as you paddle along, and the trees become more and more populated with hardwoods like sycamores, sweetgums, oaks and ash, and the bottoms wrapped by vines and thorny brambles, and some palmettos. Eventually you will see a settlement on the left bank (to the west as the lake curves north) where the land rises to its full height, and then falls away completely. This is the exit you need to follow to return to the main channel of the big river. There are gravel bars here where the water flows over, a road crossing (no bridge) and overgrown gravelly sandbars, only the hardiest of trees in this nutrient poor soil, honey locust and osage orange pop up in low spots where some mud has accumulated, otherwise it’s all tough weeds and dewberry vines.

Here you reach the final gate of this route. If the water is flowing through, you are good to go, the passage is open back to the river. If the water is not flowing, you will have to portage or turn around and paddle back 3-4 miles to Cottage Island. (The dead-end happens in this situation: If the river has been low, and you happened to enter during a rise, the lake might still be filling up, and not yet overtopped this exit place. This is the possibility you will have to accept in this kind of exploration. Even if you can’t get through, it is still well-worth the journey getting here, and then getting back.