Arkansas River 5-15-12

[Paddlegal]

I had a very nice trip on the Arkansas yesterday after noon. I put in at Willow Beach Park boat ramp and headed N.E. to a small island I could see, searching for birds. As I headed around the island the water got shallow, I decided to backtrack and ended up stuck in the sand in the middle of the river. Just a little bit of shuffling and pushing got me on my way, but looking at the map now I count myself lucky, lots of shallow water all around that island.

I saw bright yellow finches, bright red finches and rescued a pretty large toy ball from some reeds. Cormorant flew overhead and also saw two Mallards.

Paddled about 3 miles, temps were great and no wind, just a nice breeze in my face on the way back. The honey suckle is in bloom and I'm sure I spotted a crab apple tree. I really like this trip if I can avoid the industrial noises and motors.

I was almost swamped by a bass boat on the way back, I was gonna holler at him for disobeying the law, but he was gone by then. I hope he hit a shallow, sandy shoal.

I can do this trip after work at 4:30 and the put in is easy, quite near I440 if anyone is interested, thepaddlegal@gmail.com

[Wendy]

You mention in this post that you count yourself lucky that you didn't get stuck in the shallow waters around the island. Is getting stuck a problem around the islands on the Arkansas. For instance, would I encounter this situation around the islands between Maumelle Park and Murray Lock and Dam? I will be going out on the Arkansas for the first time this week, and I am not for sure what to expect. I would appreciate your insight.

[Steve Stilwell]

oops, never mind.

[Wendy]

For any newbie like myself who is interested in kayaking around the islands above Murray Dam, here is what I found out yesterday:

The island area on the north side of Two Rivers Park is very shallow. Upon your approach of the islands, you will pass an area of stumps and dead limbs in the water. This area is very shallow right now but we did kayak past it with no problem. We tried to kayak around two of the islands. The waterway around the first small island got choked out by reeds. The waterway around the next island appeared to be too shallow to kayak all the way around it. However, it was a very open waterway but none of it seemed to be more than ten inches deep. I was really nervous about getting stuck on my first trip in there so we turned around there.

If anybody could recommend a good island area for kayaking on the Arkansas River around Little Rock, I would really appreciate it!