The Lower Mississippi River Water Trail

LBD 505-502 Corregidor Bar

 

Low-lying bar with no protection until you reach its bottom end (around 502).  Goes completely under around 30GG.  In high water levels you can stay left bank descending all the way around Sarah’s Cut-Off before jumping back into the main channel at Opossum Chute above Wilson Point Bar.

 

RBD 500-495 Wilson Point Bar

 

After getting flushed out Opossum Chute and the narrows at Corregidor, the canoeist or kayaker washes out into a gentle bend to the South at Mayersville past another Bunge elevator, a public boat ramp (Tennis Court Ramp) and a small refinery (Magnolia Resources, Inc).  At high water Wilson Point Bar splits the ocean of water in two, the majority of the flow going wide around the bend, and a smaller portion staying right bank descending and flowing more slowly through a beautiful back channel.  Nearing flood stage 48 on the Greenville Gauge the top of Wilson Point Bar splinters into a tapestry of smaller channels which flow over the top of the island in a dozen or more sluices through the sandbars and in between stands of willows, cottonwoods, sycamores and other scrubby vegetation.  Deer, coyote, and wild boar inhabit this island and sometimes are seen or spooked out in high water, and the paddler enjoys a floating safari.  Last time I paddled over Wilson Point three deer jumped up out of the brush and leaped into the small finger channel we had chosen and swam right across our bows!  Not far downstream a bald eagle took to wing.   Down the back channel another island is found almost directly across from the Magnolia Resources refinery.

 

LBD 496 Tennis Court Landing

 

Paddlers will find Mayersville to be a suitable put-in or take-out with a few precautions.  There are two ramps are located here.  The older one is frequently bogged down in mud (below medium water 25GG).  The new one was recently crushed by an upstream tow (sometime in 2011).  Access to Mayersville is over a gravel/muddy road that gets flooded around 45 Greenville Gauge.   Paddlers of course can always find a place to make landing.  Simply paddle until you find the road!   Tiny Mayersville is one mile over the levee.  There is one small convenience store at the dusty crossroads downtown, Tony’s Grocery, 101 Holly Lane, Mayersville, 662-873-6030.  Rolling Fork, the birthplace of Muddy Waters, is less than eight miles away.  If you need groceries hide your vessel very carefully, or better yet find someone with a pickup truck and take it with you.  Not a safe place to leave your valuables, or any of your precious camping and paddling gear.  Rolling Fork is well worth the visit, for good food, accommodations, points of interest, and Southern hospitality.  (See appendix for services, accommodations, contacts and other details).  But only if you can secure a ride and safely stash your vessel.  Otherwise it would probably be best to continue downstream to Lake Providence or Vicksburg .