Foreword
A couple of "trial runs" preceded the trip on Wednesday, May 19, 2004. The first trip to the Tallahatchie was my first real paddling experience after a 30-year hiatus and my first time back on this river in 50 years. It was a windy day and Bear's old Blue Hole OCA has a complete disgust for two things: 1. water with no current in it and 2. wind. I started out into the wind figuring to blow out my musculature on the upwind leg and have a good run of it on the downwind leg back. Wrong! Near killed myself fighting the wind because the canoe wanted to fall off it and drift sideways back to the landing. Like an ornery mule, if it couldn't go back to the barn, it would either try to dump you or go to the bank to graze. Bear agreed the Blue Hole OCA was mean in a wind and really needed a bit of a current in the water to handle well. That day I was praying either for a kayak paddle or a roll of carpet tape and an 8' 1x2 to make a keel. Instead, when my knees started hurting, I stood up and used myownself for a sail and let the wind do the work a lot of the way back.
Monday, I went to a nearby town to look for a particular shirt at WalMart. Not there either but, of all things, they had a Rogue River kayak paddle reduced to $9. I bought it instantly and headed on to the next town that had a WalMart but never did find that shirt. Found a buncha neat camping gear at the next one—all on sale for really good prices.
The next day I built a bracket to attach to a thwart and attached a small paddle, adjustable for depth, on the port side hoping it would act as a keel. Headed back to the Tallahatchie for a trial. Wind was blowing, as usual, but I was able to make reasonably straight runs against, across, and downwind. When I tried out the keel with a regular paddle, I found it did little to no good and wasn't worth hauling around, even with the whole blade of the paddle submerged. The kayak paddle, aside from filling the canoe with water, as every experienced paddler already knew, worked great……by comparison.
Background
This area of the Tallahatchie, known locally as the 40-Mile Bend is a backwater created when a channel was dug that cut it off to the north and connected the river again at the southern end of the bend. The bend is fed only from the south and has no current. Therefore the water is clear and much nicer. On my first trip the river was way down exposing long stretches of ugly, muddy banks and occasional trash heaps. After the last week of thunderstorms the river is way up although a few trees have succumbed to gravity and water lapping at their roots and have fallen into the river. They pose no problem because the river is wide. Now the waterline meets the green line and the Tallahatchie is pretty again as in years gone by.
The Real Trip
On Wednesday, May 19, I dropped the Evil Princess off at work at six in the morning and made a quick run to the Tallahatchie with more than enough fishing gear and bait and tackle and my beloved kayak paddle. When I got there, the sky was grey-black to black but the air was dead calm. Storm coming, I figured. Too calm. I was the only one on the river. To Hell with it, I'm going upriver.
Ignoring the signs for a pending storm I hit the river and found the kayak paddle made for a much more enjoyable experience, albeit a wet one. No way I can operate this canoe without the kayak paddle so wet is the price I will have to pay to get on the river or anywhere else. Forgot to buy a big sponge……
When I got a goodly distance from the launch area, a siren sounded twice back in Minter City and I wondered if it was signaling a tornado or was meaningful only at the mill, the only thing really left there other than some residences. I spotted a "storm cove" and checked it out and kept an eye out for them thereafter in case the weather took a turn for the worse as it looked as though it could at any moment. I might have to make a run for cover. Spotted five sheltered coves in the distance I covered.
Along the way, I startled a deer that in turn startled me by snorting/whistling loudly and crashing back into the woods. It was a very large, reddish whitetail. At what was about the halfway point of my trek, I discovered a single, large, columnar bridge piling with the telltale gear ring atop it that indicates the remains of an old turning bridge. Rather than raise to let boat traffic under, it simply turned parallel to the river in near mid stream. Had forgotten all about those. Stopped for a moment, poured some coffee and inspected the thing while wondering when it last let a boat pass on this now abandoned stretch of the river. River traffic on the Tallahatchie? News to me and I was born before the middle of the last century. A little further down, I heard some light crashing in the woods and looked up to see a small, grey whitetail doe running from something right along the edge of the river. She wasn't in panic gear but she was distancing herself from something. I never discovered what. That's deer business. She never knew I was in the river or that she loped right by me. That's what I like about canoes, that and scaring Hell outta fish that don't hear you coming.
The woods on the riverbank consist of cottonwoods, a few hickory and cypress, and loads of wild pecan—but I never heard or saw a squirrel. Probably some oaks and other breeds that I didn't spot. Once I made the bend in the river and headed east, the light breeze that had come up was totally absent in many places. Attempts to fish got no bites at all. Fishing isn't that hot when the river is high. Trash fish were jumping here and there and I saw several very large gar—big enough to be the alligator variety. Then a fish jumped way up ahead of me and I thought, "Spoonbill." Everyone I've talked to while out fishing hasn't seen one in years and, like me, thought they were either gone from this region or very scarce. I tried to tell myself that it was probably a gar but I didn't believe me. I also figured no one else would believe me either but, then, that happens a lot. Then I saw another……and another……and another. They seemed to be jumping everywhere and mostly staying out in front of me. I knew they were spoonbills but when a two-foot one (less bill which is one-third the length of their body) jumped clear of the water not ten feet from the boat, I knew without a doubt this backwater bend of the Tallahatchie is full of them and some of them VERY large. I'm sure I saw one that was at least four feet long, without bill, and possibly longer—one CAN be deceived……or get a little excited, you know, but I'll make bets. The whole fish clears the water vertically, everything but the tail. They seem to relish falling over backward.
That was a welcome to the river that I won't forget—a water ballet performed by spoonbills that seemed to always stay ahead of and beside me, beckoning me to come on upriver and providing an escort. I did as they indicated and pressed on, unbelieving. As eleven o'clock got close, my drop-dead turn-around time, I stopped and sat and watched the damned things jump all around me. They are reputed to be the link between sharks with cartilaginous skeletons and fish with bone skeletons and scales and could have been around for 300 million years. Their closest relative is thought to be the sturgeon. They seem to have become extremely rare in many places and are heavily protected in most states. They are illegal to possess in Mississippi from May 1st to October 31st so that probably means they are totally protected since the remaining months are cold ones. They can grow up to seven feet and well over 100 pounds.
Like some whales, they eat plankton and similar material and swim around with their huge mouths open and heads moving from side to side. They can only be caught with nets or by snagging. Their roe is used for very expensive caviar where harvesting them is legal. Previously, I had only seen one in my life that was caught by a snagger at Sardis Dam in the spillway channel when I was around ten years old. It marked me and has haunted me all my life. When we got back to this area and I got around fishermen, I always asked about them but no one knew anything. Some few who remembered them said they must be gone. I figured, like so many other things that man has destroyed, that they were gone, at least from here.
Ten minutes after my turnaround time, I picked up the paddle and, upstream at the next bend in the river, a very big one came up out of the water and dove upstream, as though beckoning me to come on up the river with them and made a splash that sounded like a tree had fallen into the river. I could follow no longer. As I started the trip back, there were no more leaping spoonbills……as though they were as disappointed as I that I had to return to civilization.
On the way back, once out of the sheltered runs of the river, I found the wind had risen considerably and the battle with the Blue Hole commenced as I powered my way back to the boat ramp in alternating head and crosswinds. Where the Hell is that turning bridge? It was an hour downstream. Finally, there it is. Now, where the Hell is that south leg? Somebody must have come along and moved it. Probably the damned Corps of Engineers—they're forever doing worthless, damaging things to local rivers……"heppin' folks from floods". Yea, buddy, dredging the Sunflower and destroying mussel beds that date back into prehistoric times and spending billions to do nothing but drain a few acres for a handful of influential farmers. Studies, other than theirs, have indicated that the dredging will cause flood damage to a whole new population of people who hadn't flooded before and inundate bunches of acres of wilderness. At least so the war wages. Yep. It was the Corps. They moved my bend and the damned boat ramp to boot. My legs hurt, my shoulders hurt, and my knees are locked. The Delta sun is out in full force and my skin is burning and I'm sweatin' like a field hand as gills start to evolve in my neck to process oxygen from the moisture-laden air. Whadda miserable bitch. Moreover, it's been a bad-bladder day and no place to beach the canoe for a pit stop because the high water has left only vertical banks. Helluva deal……and a helluva maneuver in a canoe to try to find relief over the side. It was probably all the Corps' fault. Then, finally, there's the bend and then the ramp.
Damn. Is it really over? Do I really have to go back amongst 'em—the Madding Crowds and the teeming, whining, complaining masses and wars and rumors of wars and political campaigns and…… Away up river I could hear the crashes and splashes and in my mind's eye see the silvery grey, glistening throwback to bygone eras before the advent of man and "civilization". It was the Sirens' song and I knew it and my wife would soon be standing in a hot parking lot waiting if I didn't hustle. So I beached the canoe and stepped out. Suddenly, it was gone……all of it. Now I heard only highway traffic and eighteen wheelers thumping across the expansion joints in the Tallahatchie River Bridge and sounds of the mill hands across the road building something. Billy Joe'd get run over tryin' to throw something off that bridge these days. Not the same one, though, but couldn't help thinkin' th' thought.
Saturday, the Evil Princess, caught up in my river tale and with white knuckles and all, says she wants to go to the ballet. She's never seen the Spoonbill Dancers perform. Hell, she'd never seen a spoonbill until I showed her a picture this afternoon on the Internet. I think she thought I'd been spoofin' her all these years about them prehistoric fish. She's only logged-in ten minutes in a canoe and then she turned the gunwales into aluminum spaghetti holdin' on so tight. But, we'll be headin' way upriver at first light Saturday so as to catch the opening act by the Whitetail Players and not miss any of the main performance by the Spoonbill Dancers—but Saturday is sooo far away……
Oldtimer
A couple of "trial runs" preceded the trip on Wednesday, May 19, 2004. The first trip to the Tallahatchie was my first real paddling experience after a 30-year hiatus and my first time back on this river in 50 years. It was a windy day and Bear's old Blue Hole OCA has a complete disgust for two things: 1. water with no current in it and 2. wind. I started out into the wind figuring to blow out my musculature on the upwind leg and have a good run of it on the downwind leg back. Wrong! Near killed myself fighting the wind because the canoe wanted to fall off it and drift sideways back to the landing. Like an ornery mule, if it couldn't go back to the barn, it would either try to dump you or go to the bank to graze. Bear agreed the Blue Hole OCA was mean in a wind and really needed a bit of a current in the water to handle well. That day I was praying either for a kayak paddle or a roll of carpet tape and an 8' 1x2 to make a keel. Instead, when my knees started hurting, I stood up and used myownself for a sail and let the wind do the work a lot of the way back.
Monday, I went to a nearby town to look for a particular shirt at WalMart. Not there either but, of all things, they had a Rogue River kayak paddle reduced to $9. I bought it instantly and headed on to the next town that had a WalMart but never did find that shirt. Found a buncha neat camping gear at the next one—all on sale for really good prices.
The next day I built a bracket to attach to a thwart and attached a small paddle, adjustable for depth, on the port side hoping it would act as a keel. Headed back to the Tallahatchie for a trial. Wind was blowing, as usual, but I was able to make reasonably straight runs against, across, and downwind. When I tried out the keel with a regular paddle, I found it did little to no good and wasn't worth hauling around, even with the whole blade of the paddle submerged. The kayak paddle, aside from filling the canoe with water, as every experienced paddler already knew, worked great……by comparison.
Background
This area of the Tallahatchie, known locally as the 40-Mile Bend is a backwater created when a channel was dug that cut it off to the north and connected the river again at the southern end of the bend. The bend is fed only from the south and has no current. Therefore the water is clear and much nicer. On my first trip the river was way down exposing long stretches of ugly, muddy banks and occasional trash heaps. After the last week of thunderstorms the river is way up although a few trees have succumbed to gravity and water lapping at their roots and have fallen into the river. They pose no problem because the river is wide. Now the waterline meets the green line and the Tallahatchie is pretty again as in years gone by.
The Real Trip
On Wednesday, May 19, I dropped the Evil Princess off at work at six in the morning and made a quick run to the Tallahatchie with more than enough fishing gear and bait and tackle and my beloved kayak paddle. When I got there, the sky was grey-black to black but the air was dead calm. Storm coming, I figured. Too calm. I was the only one on the river. To Hell with it, I'm going upriver.
Ignoring the signs for a pending storm I hit the river and found the kayak paddle made for a much more enjoyable experience, albeit a wet one. No way I can operate this canoe without the kayak paddle so wet is the price I will have to pay to get on the river or anywhere else. Forgot to buy a big sponge……
When I got a goodly distance from the launch area, a siren sounded twice back in Minter City and I wondered if it was signaling a tornado or was meaningful only at the mill, the only thing really left there other than some residences. I spotted a "storm cove" and checked it out and kept an eye out for them thereafter in case the weather took a turn for the worse as it looked as though it could at any moment. I might have to make a run for cover. Spotted five sheltered coves in the distance I covered.
Along the way, I startled a deer that in turn startled me by snorting/whistling loudly and crashing back into the woods. It was a very large, reddish whitetail. At what was about the halfway point of my trek, I discovered a single, large, columnar bridge piling with the telltale gear ring atop it that indicates the remains of an old turning bridge. Rather than raise to let boat traffic under, it simply turned parallel to the river in near mid stream. Had forgotten all about those. Stopped for a moment, poured some coffee and inspected the thing while wondering when it last let a boat pass on this now abandoned stretch of the river. River traffic on the Tallahatchie? News to me and I was born before the middle of the last century. A little further down, I heard some light crashing in the woods and looked up to see a small, grey whitetail doe running from something right along the edge of the river. She wasn't in panic gear but she was distancing herself from something. I never discovered what. That's deer business. She never knew I was in the river or that she loped right by me. That's what I like about canoes, that and scaring Hell outta fish that don't hear you coming.
The woods on the riverbank consist of cottonwoods, a few hickory and cypress, and loads of wild pecan—but I never heard or saw a squirrel. Probably some oaks and other breeds that I didn't spot. Once I made the bend in the river and headed east, the light breeze that had come up was totally absent in many places. Attempts to fish got no bites at all. Fishing isn't that hot when the river is high. Trash fish were jumping here and there and I saw several very large gar—big enough to be the alligator variety. Then a fish jumped way up ahead of me and I thought, "Spoonbill." Everyone I've talked to while out fishing hasn't seen one in years and, like me, thought they were either gone from this region or very scarce. I tried to tell myself that it was probably a gar but I didn't believe me. I also figured no one else would believe me either but, then, that happens a lot. Then I saw another……and another……and another. They seemed to be jumping everywhere and mostly staying out in front of me. I knew they were spoonbills but when a two-foot one (less bill which is one-third the length of their body) jumped clear of the water not ten feet from the boat, I knew without a doubt this backwater bend of the Tallahatchie is full of them and some of them VERY large. I'm sure I saw one that was at least four feet long, without bill, and possibly longer—one CAN be deceived……or get a little excited, you know, but I'll make bets. The whole fish clears the water vertically, everything but the tail. They seem to relish falling over backward.
That was a welcome to the river that I won't forget—a water ballet performed by spoonbills that seemed to always stay ahead of and beside me, beckoning me to come on upriver and providing an escort. I did as they indicated and pressed on, unbelieving. As eleven o'clock got close, my drop-dead turn-around time, I stopped and sat and watched the damned things jump all around me. They are reputed to be the link between sharks with cartilaginous skeletons and fish with bone skeletons and scales and could have been around for 300 million years. Their closest relative is thought to be the sturgeon. They seem to have become extremely rare in many places and are heavily protected in most states. They are illegal to possess in Mississippi from May 1st to October 31st so that probably means they are totally protected since the remaining months are cold ones. They can grow up to seven feet and well over 100 pounds.
Like some whales, they eat plankton and similar material and swim around with their huge mouths open and heads moving from side to side. They can only be caught with nets or by snagging. Their roe is used for very expensive caviar where harvesting them is legal. Previously, I had only seen one in my life that was caught by a snagger at Sardis Dam in the spillway channel when I was around ten years old. It marked me and has haunted me all my life. When we got back to this area and I got around fishermen, I always asked about them but no one knew anything. Some few who remembered them said they must be gone. I figured, like so many other things that man has destroyed, that they were gone, at least from here.
Ten minutes after my turnaround time, I picked up the paddle and, upstream at the next bend in the river, a very big one came up out of the water and dove upstream, as though beckoning me to come on up the river with them and made a splash that sounded like a tree had fallen into the river. I could follow no longer. As I started the trip back, there were no more leaping spoonbills……as though they were as disappointed as I that I had to return to civilization.
On the way back, once out of the sheltered runs of the river, I found the wind had risen considerably and the battle with the Blue Hole commenced as I powered my way back to the boat ramp in alternating head and crosswinds. Where the Hell is that turning bridge? It was an hour downstream. Finally, there it is. Now, where the Hell is that south leg? Somebody must have come along and moved it. Probably the damned Corps of Engineers—they're forever doing worthless, damaging things to local rivers……"heppin' folks from floods". Yea, buddy, dredging the Sunflower and destroying mussel beds that date back into prehistoric times and spending billions to do nothing but drain a few acres for a handful of influential farmers. Studies, other than theirs, have indicated that the dredging will cause flood damage to a whole new population of people who hadn't flooded before and inundate bunches of acres of wilderness. At least so the war wages. Yep. It was the Corps. They moved my bend and the damned boat ramp to boot. My legs hurt, my shoulders hurt, and my knees are locked. The Delta sun is out in full force and my skin is burning and I'm sweatin' like a field hand as gills start to evolve in my neck to process oxygen from the moisture-laden air. Whadda miserable bitch. Moreover, it's been a bad-bladder day and no place to beach the canoe for a pit stop because the high water has left only vertical banks. Helluva deal……and a helluva maneuver in a canoe to try to find relief over the side. It was probably all the Corps' fault. Then, finally, there's the bend and then the ramp.
Damn. Is it really over? Do I really have to go back amongst 'em—the Madding Crowds and the teeming, whining, complaining masses and wars and rumors of wars and political campaigns and…… Away up river I could hear the crashes and splashes and in my mind's eye see the silvery grey, glistening throwback to bygone eras before the advent of man and "civilization". It was the Sirens' song and I knew it and my wife would soon be standing in a hot parking lot waiting if I didn't hustle. So I beached the canoe and stepped out. Suddenly, it was gone……all of it. Now I heard only highway traffic and eighteen wheelers thumping across the expansion joints in the Tallahatchie River Bridge and sounds of the mill hands across the road building something. Billy Joe'd get run over tryin' to throw something off that bridge these days. Not the same one, though, but couldn't help thinkin' th' thought.
Saturday, the Evil Princess, caught up in my river tale and with white knuckles and all, says she wants to go to the ballet. She's never seen the Spoonbill Dancers perform. Hell, she'd never seen a spoonbill until I showed her a picture this afternoon on the Internet. I think she thought I'd been spoofin' her all these years about them prehistoric fish. She's only logged-in ten minutes in a canoe and then she turned the gunwales into aluminum spaghetti holdin' on so tight. But, we'll be headin' way upriver at first light Saturday so as to catch the opening act by the Whitetail Players and not miss any of the main performance by the Spoonbill Dancers—but Saturday is sooo far away……
Oldtimer