If there is ever an easy answer to the often posed question about where to have an worry-free paddle without the worry of shuttling in Central Mississippi, it has to be the Ross Barnett Reservoir. This week Lucy's Revenge, in conjunction with the newly formed Central Mississippi Paddling Mafia, took to the Ross Barnett with a vengeance in an attempt to see what she had to offer. The idea was to find a way to hit the water quickly and put in a few miles after work, or on a quick whim.
We had no problem.
On Tuesday afternoon Kelly McGinnis, Dawn Henderson, Sharon and I launched from Pelahatchie Shore Park for a sunset tour of Pelahatchie Bay. It was beautful enough that my video from the 4 mile trip inspired another paddling friend, David Ogletree to hit the water this past Sunday to see if he could spot a few of the many hundreds of white pelicans we surprised on the north side of the bay.
The full moon rises over the Pearl River on Friday, March 18.
Friday night brought a full moon, and an opportune time for an 8 mile paddle from Ratliff Ferry to Tommy's Trading Post at Goshen Springs. Kelly, Sharon and I were joined by Michelle Blair and Daniel Stuart. We watched a beautiful sunset and moonrise and paddled past a few campsites as people readied for what turned out to be a sensational weekend of weather. We made it in 2 hours and 20 minutes.
Saturday morning I awoke determined not to get caught at the house. So, I and my youngest son Rickey headed out for an overnight trip down the Pearl River from the spillway to Lefluer's Bluff; a 12 mile trip. With the help of my trusty shuttling assistant and oldest son Isaac, I dropped my equipment and Rickey at the spillway, drove my vehicle to Lefluer's Bluff and was driven back to start our adventure.
Rickey Plunkett on the Pearl River.
The launch at the spillway was crowded with fisherman, but just beyond the first river bend the noise of the spillway and the mass of humanity surrounding it was already a memory. The water was pushing at a brisk 4 miles per hour, and we easily floated a quick 4 miles before deciding on a sandbar to make camp.
Rickey spent hours that afternoon sitting in the sand next to the river, digging holes, reading, and just being a kid. There's not a video game in the world that can compete with that. There's nothing quite like seeing your kids lose themselves in the slow pace of the outdoors. That evening, we watched another awe inspiring moon rise over the trees, and after hours of rare uninterupted conversation by the campfire we were serenaded to sleep by a chorus of owls singing along to the background sounds of water churning past fallen limbs.
A beautiful sunrise the next morning and a couple of hot chocolates, and we were packed and back on the water. An almost 8 mile trip should have taken us a couple of hours, but the Pearl River was pushing us along fast, and we were landing at Lefluer's Bluff in just over an hour. I'm glad I got the opportunity to take Rickey with me on this trip, but I'm accustomed to putting in over 40 miles in a weekend. I still wasn't satisfied and I wanted more.
The paddling gods were smiling. By the time Rickey and I stopped off for a quick bite at my friend Roberto's restaurant, my phone was buzzing with another opportunity. Kelly was sending out a call to all members of "the family" to meet up at Pelahatchie Shore Park for an afternoon of exploration. My reply to his text was a simple, "I'm in."
Rickey stayed at home to shower and rest up in preparation for a new week at school. I headed south out of Flora towards Ross Barnett, yet again. Entering Pelahatchie Shore Park, I found a mass of people walking, fishing, disc golfing, and some just laying out on the grass looking up at the cottony clouds. There were no signs of my crew, so I found a parking place to wait. That's when David Ogletree drove up and got my attention and we began talking about where I had spotted the white pelicans a couple of days before. A few minutes later my crew began to arrive; first David Christopher then, Michelle and her husband Kelvin, finally Kelly and his daughter and a friend.
We stayed away from the boat launch. It was a site of constant action and turmoil from boaters loading an unloading their fishing rigs. Instead we launched from a small inlet with easy access. Paddling around the tip of the peninsula and avoiding the boats, we headed east. The water began to lose it's chop as we found ourselves among a couple of small islands and interior waterways. We crossed underneath Spillway Road and into a wooded area adjacent to Millcreek Subdivision, finally running into an impassable weir about two and a half miles into the trip. Were the water not being released at such a clip from the spillway due to heavy rains, we likely could have paddled another mile. Forced to turn back, we made our way through the wooded area again. The west side of the little tributary provided a little visual entertainment: 10-12 foot tall red blooming azalea's, old forgotten camellia's still showing some blooms from their winter show, and the show of light purple wisteria climbing over and through the woods as if in search of something.
We talked of future paddles; our newly formed band of boating brethren.
The summer days are thankfully long, and opportunities are everywhere on and around "The Rez".
Blue Trails and events to promote rivers for paddlesports
brings tourist dollars.
BY: B. Keith Plunkett
The Land Trust for the Mississippi Coastal Plain is one of 113 Land Trusts accredited through the Land Trust Alliance, and the only one in Mississippi. Other Land Trusts in the state include the Mississippi Land Trust based out of Stoneville, the North Mississippi Land Trust in Hernando, the East Mississippi Foothills Land Trust in Meridian, and the Caplan Wildlife Sanctuary in Tylertown. Of these five, the Land Trust for the Mississippi Coastal Plain, the North Mississippi Land Trust, and the East Mississippi Foothills Land Trust have dealt directly with watershed issues. The LTMCP and NMLT are the only two that have implemented development of Blueways, or Water Trails.
In general, land trusts are organizations that help to permanently protect land for the benefit of the public. There are more than 1,600 land trusts in the United States. These community-based institutions have protected more than 37 million acres of land.
Land trusts may protect land through donation and purchase, by working with landowners who wish to donate or sell conservation easements (permanent deed restrictions that prevent harmful land uses), or by acquiring land outright to maintain working farms, forests, wilderness, or for other conservation reasons.
By comparison, a blue trail is a dedicated stretch of river that enjoys special clean water safeguards and is a destination for fishing, boating, and other recreation. Blue trails, like hiking trails, help people discover rivers and provide a connection between urban and rural communities and the great outdoors. Blue trails provide a fun and exciting way to get youth outdoors and are economic drivers benefiting local businesses and quality of life.
Land Trusts and Blue Trails work together for the benefit of both.
In addition to Land Trusts, groups like the Pascagoula River Basin Alliance bring together a diverse group of stakeholders to help in protection efforts. The Pascagoula River Basin Alliance mission is to promote the ecological, economic and cultural health and viability of the Pascagoula, Leaf, Chickasawhay, and Escatawpa Rivers and their watersheds by fostering research, communication, and action. Many other waterways are semi protected by State Wildlife Management Areas that adjoin them.
American Rivers is forging partnerships with land trusts and other local groups to create blue trails as an innovative way to protect clean water and critical riverside lands, while promoting river recreation, sustainable economic development, and community pride. But here in Mississippi, the idea of Blue Trails is one that hasn't taken off as quickly as in other states.
While Mississippi's Gulf Coast, East Mississippi, North Mississippi, and to a lesser degree the Delta and Southwest have ongoing efforts that lend themselves to potential Blue Trail development, what I can't seem to find is any reference to a similar movement in Central Mississippi.
At the Reservoir, the Pearl River Valley Water Supply District oversees recreational opportunities that include managing 48 parks and recreational facilities for an estimated 2.5 million annual visitors. Ther are five campgrounds, 16 parks, 22 boat launches, three handicapped-accessible trails, two multi-purpose trails and a mountain bike trail. Each campground has a live-in, on-site Reservoir Patrol manager.Many proponents continue to fight for a similar proposal to create lakes south of downtown Jackson on the Pearl River. The Army Corps of Engineers continues to shoot down that project. Isn't the possibility of a Blue Trail something that would benefit the area without building more dams?
A healthy river can increase property values, boost recreational opportunities and local business, reduce water pollution, and protect people and property from flooding. But dams, levees and other man-made structures disrupt the natural functions of rivers, leaving many of them lifeless or cut off from their communities.
Why hasn't this been tried as a way to promote the ecology of the Pearl River and paddlesports as a legitimate tourist attraction?
Does this just make too much sense to be tried? Or has it been tried, and found to be unworkable? If it works, the possibilities to jump start similar efforts in Central Mississippi would be much improved.
A friend and coworker has spent the last year and a half listening to me tell tales of paddling all over Mississippi. He finally had enough of it and purchased himself and his wife a couple of Wilderness Pamlico 120’s in December. We scheduled a rendezvous at Pelahatchie Creek. The creek enters Pelahatchie Bay from Rankin County to the East, which in turn feeds into the Ross Barnett Reservoir.
It was a close central meeting point for us, he coming from Brandon, and I from Flora. I had yet to paddle Pelahatchie and had been hearing good things about it being a great afternoon in and out spot. He was anxious to get his new boats wet.
Weather forecasts had been warning for almost a week of an impending ice and snow storm that would shut down everything. Anxious to get in some time on the water prior to the doom of the Snowpocalypse, Sharon and I bundled up and prepared for a cold January paddle. His wife joined us, too.
Launching from Pelahatchie Trading Post we paddled 3.5 miles before the setting sun forced us to turn back.
We launched from the boat ramp behind the Pelahatchie Trading Post at around 2:00 that afternoon. The GPS showed the trip to be one longer than we could complete in the short daylight hours we had left. So, we decided to make it a leisurely trip, get as far as we would, and then turnaround and come back.
Paddling East under Highway 471 we passed by a few fisherman hunkering down in the well protected areas at the mouth of the Creek. The wind in open areas wasn’t terrible, especially with the sunshine, but the fishermen we spotted appeared less concerned with a catch than with just being there. For the first three or four bends we rounded in the creek we spotted fishermen, all said they had caught nothing.
Golfers were out playing the adjacent course of Bay Pointe that abuts the creek for about a half mile. Mississippi’s winter 2010-2011 has been tougher than in most years. This day was hardly good for golfing, but folks accustomed to being outside can only take so long before cabin fever begins to set in. There was no look of seriousness to any of the play, but you could tell people were happy to have a day of sunshine.
It is easy to see this is a favorite paddle spot for day-trippers. Downed trees that could have likely caused problems were eaten away in spots from some previous visitor’s chainsaws. The creek is loaded with logjams, but they are obviously cleared with great regularity. And, it’s a good thing. There are no sandbars, at least in the short 3 and a half mile run upstream we did. So had we run into an impassable jam, the choice in most places was to turn around and call it a day.
At around the 3-quarter mile mark the open golf course to our right disappeared and we were swallowed up by the surrounding trees. As we meandered upstream, I prepared for a quick couple of shots with the camera. I allowed the others in my party to paddle ahead, as I still have a hard time talking to a camera with others around me. A few shots here and a few there and I began paddling to catch up with my crew.
The only opening I would see again in the heavily forested creek would be immediately surrounding Highway 25. But as quickly as I descended from the woods, once crossing underneath the bridge there and I was just as quickly back into the thick of it.
At this point, I should have caught up with the other three paddlers. But, I had not. I thought to myself that maybe during my few months of not paddling as frequently I was not in as good shape, but surely I hadn’t lost that much. Even though I’ve been in a couple of kayak races, I’m a touring kayaker, not a true racer. Still I could easily sustain speeds in excess of 5 miles per hour and, unless my GPS was really bad off, I had hit 6 miles per hour on a few bursts. How could they have gotten that far away so quickly?
I rounded bend after bend, nobody. Just me, the woods, the water and an increasing number of deer and squirrels.
As I was trying to decide whether they had turned off the main route, or whether I was just crazy. I began to see wildlife, lots of it. How could I be spotting deer and squirrel that undisturbed had my cohorts already been through here? How could they have turned off so easily? The creek is fairly easy to track.
At that moment, a big splash jolted me out of my deep thought. River Otters! I had seen them before on the Chickasawhay, but these guys were close, two of them. They were much more playful and curious too. I scrambled for my camera once again forgetting about my paddling companions.
After playing with the Otters, my thoughts began to focus again on finding my wife and friends. It seemed obvious that they must have made a wrong turn. I had noticed several cuts that crisscrossed the creek. But they weren’t big enough to mistake for the main creek. Were they?
I sat silent.
I paddled ahead a short distance.
I paddled back a short distance.
I began to worry.
My wife is going to being ticked off!
And then, there they were. The signs had all been there. The animal’s I was seeing was an indication they hadn’t been this way, and they hadn’t. They had made a wrong turn. Sure, it was easy for me to keep on the creek, I had the GPS. And they, well they didn’t. I took my wife’s not so subtle irritation like a man.
Yes dear.
I do get lost in my thoughts out here. But, that’s part of the allure.
We paddled a little farther upstream, before turning back. We loaded the kayaks just as the sun and the temps were dropping fast. We’ll be back to do the whole thing, and next time I’ll try to keep up with my crew.
