Mile 665.5 - LBD Trotter’s Pass

665.5 LBD Trotter’s Pass

A beautiful side trip into a primeval world where you can paddle as far as you feel comfortable doing so. Round Trip: paddle into Trotter’s Pass and then turn around and paddle back and continue your journey downstream the main channel.

How to find Trotters: As you are coming downstream around the outside edge of Buck Island keep to the far outside edge of the Flower Lake Bend and watch carefully as you paddle for the tiny slot opening at approximately mile 665.5. You probably won’t see it until you’re right on top of it. At low water it’s just a narrow muddy inlet that the local beavers maintain for their use. During low water make landing and inspect by foot. The water starts flowing inwards (on a rising river) at around 12HG. At 16HG there will be a twenty to thirty foot wide channel through which you can easily paddle up into Trotter Lake, although sometimes this channel is blocked by massive piles of driftwood. Almost always the persistent paddler can find a way around these rafts of driftwood, but be prepared for adventure if you proceed!

Also known as Old River Chute and Trotter’s Landing. This is an old channel of the Mississippi, now cut off by levees, which winds its way parallel to the current main channel up to Trotter’s Lake. During high water levels access all the way north to Tunica Lake could be afforded more adventurous paddlers via Nail’s Bayou, which would take you in a deep woods route behind the now land-locked Helena Island. Bring your machete and GPS.