Warning: Got pinned against the bank at mile marker 12 on the Yazoo River last week

I was running a swing ladder on the Yazoo River near Vicksburg last Thursday when a sudden current shift pushed me hard into the bank. The port side fender got crushed and I nearly lost the ladder assembly to the mud. My takeaway is that I ignored the flow gauge reading 8.7 feet after a heavy rain the night before. That little change made all the difference in how the river handled. Has anyone else nearly gotten squeezed by a fast-rising channel like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

ray61318d ago

Matched slack lines saved my boat in that exact same spot last fall.

matthewking18d ago

Yeah that 8-9 foot range on the Yazoo after heavy rain is sneaky. The current gets real pushy against the outside bends and it'll grab your ladder before you even feel the rudder lag. I started keeping a closer eye on the treeline debris lines after getting pinned similar near the Big Black River confluence. If the water's still climbing when you tie off, leave yourself some slack in the spring lines so you can adjust without fighting the bank.

paige_bell8118d ago

Man that's rough, I've had that same sinking feeling when the current grabs hold and everything goes sideways. A buddy of mine got his bow pinned up against a fallen oak near the Sunflower River cutoff last spring and it took us three hours just to get him loose without flipping. The water was still coming up and we had to keep cutting lines and resetting while the bank kept sloughing off under our feet. It's one of those lessons you only need to learn once but man it sticks with you.