Leaf River Cottonmouth

I was lucky enough to catch this guy out in the open, sunning on a sandbar just the the other day when Travis Easley and I canoed the Leaf River in Jones County. Most of the cottonmouths you see along the rivers are well-concealed in bushes or lying on branches or snags, making them difficult to photograph. This one let me walk up to within a few feet and take all the photos I wanted before leisurely turning around and slithering back into the river to disappear in the muddy water.

Land Between the Lakes

One area not far from Mississippi that I have long wanted to explore but never seemed to get around to is the Land Between the Lakes area in Tennessee and Kentucky. With several hundred miles of shoreline on two huge man-made lakes - Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley -and thousands of acres of public lands between them, this is an ideal outdoor destination for sea kayaking, hiking and camping.

I didn't go there with any intention of taking a major kayaking or backpacking trip. I simply wanted to go somewhere that I could camp, see woods and water without hurricane damage, and do some hiking and backroads driving for a few days. For this purpose, Land Between the Lakes was ideal. You pay a mere $5.00 fee for a backcountry permit, then you can camp almost anywhere within the boundaries between the two lakes. The weather was perfect while I was there. Warm, sunny days and nights down to about 30 degrees F. The first night I drove down a deserted gravel road to an isolated cove on Kentucky Lake. There wasn't a soul around. After I set up camp and began cooking dinner, a bald eagle flew low right over my campsite. Over the next couple of days I saw a few other campers and fishermen, but for the most part the area was not crowded at all this early in the season.

I ended the trip with a leisurely drive down some Tennessee backroads to the upper part of the Natchez Trace, which I followed south to Jackson.