Rick, Popeye, Heather, and I met at the Oak Donnick Access at 11:00 a.m. Arkansas has a September hunting season for Canada Geese. We delayed the meetup, expecting hunters to be leaving the water and queuing up to use the boat ramp at noon. However, we did not see or hear hunters, and the parking area was empty, so we launched ahead of schedule. We did not see or hear any other boats on the water during our paddle.
The weather was fine, but getting a bit warm. We were able to paddle mostly in the shade of the cypress trees and stayed close to the open channel to catch the breeze.
None of us had paddled the area since the water trail had been marked by a band of white paint about 15 feet over the water. Passage through the cypress swamp is already very open and easy to navigate. The water trail markings generally align with signs indicating the boundary between the WMA and private property. Guiding public users away from private property may be a secondary purpose of the markings.
The river stage at Oak Donnick was 10.74 feet. Zero on the Oak Donnick gauge is 200.2 feet, totaling a pool height of 210.94 feet. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission considers 210 feet to 212 feet to be the normal pool. Therefore, we were paddling at about the middle of the normal range and experienced minimal collisions with cypress knees.