Mile 571.0 - Miles 571-567: Catfish Point Bar
571-567 Catfish Point Bar
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 the main channel, and a long paddle getting back out into the current. But you might as well get used to it: everything is super-sized here! (I.e. its going to be a long paddle no matter what you do). At low water Catfish Point Bar curves upwards of five miles inside Cypress Bend with a large gravel bar top end . The gravel bar transitions into beautiful low-angle yellow-white sand beaches mid island, which eventually steepen into a cut bank bottom end topped by clumps of willow & cottonwood trees.
If you like rock hounding and fossil finding explore the gravel bar top end, which creates a rugged landscape in between dike #1 and dike #2. This gravel bar changes from year to year, with each flood a new landscape is created, layers of sand & gravel scoured and then relaid. So the excitement never wears off. If you find any fossils of note, record them with your camera and tag them with your GPS and send to the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science whose paleontologist keeps maintains records. If you are ready for a cool-down splash in shallow water, the beaches mid-island are incomparably open and shallow, and the water flows over them slow and even, and in general slightly warmer than the deeper water beyond. [Click Here Safe Swimming]. Good place to set up the volleyball net or lay out your towel for some tanning (if you are in need of any more sun than you are already getting!). On the other hand if all you need is a little shade for a picnic or a mid-day siesta, go bottom end and pull in below one of the clumps of trees and look for the winning combination of shade and gentle breezes off the water. If you select your place carefully you can find both. Look for a couple of trees atop a sandy bluff or ridge high enough to catch the breeze, but leafy enough to produce shade. Lastly gauge the swing of the sun across the sky and choose accordingly. Its no fun to fall into a peaceful slumber only to be awoken with the burning sun in your face.