One of the great things about living along the state line in southern middle Tennessee is my proximity to the waterways of Alabama. In 20 minutes I can trailer my boat to multiple launch points on the Elk River and Lake Wheeler. Another 10 minutes will get me on Wilson Lake. I like the Elk River most even though it is hazard laden. Below the Elk River Mills launch point the river appears as if it is 600 plus feet wide, while the channel (read this as the path where a boat can safely traverse) is only 30 feet or so. It’s a maze and really cannot be safely traversed without the aid of a GPS enabled chart system. Here is a view of the Elk just below the Mills.
The only safe way to get across this area is to travel where the dark lines are on the chart. This is counter intuitive in that you would think that as long as you were traveling in the center of the waterway you’d be safe. Here is a zoomed in area on the chart.
Importantly, every thing outside of the main channel is 5-10 feet deep. Now I’m perfectly OK with running in reasonably shallow water, but the Elk River runs 40 miles or so from the last dam point before it reaches this point and the way nature works is that downed timber from the upper reaches flows down and gets hung up in the shallow areas. Over time a dense minefield has been created; which is why I fish the upper Elk and not south of the Mill area.
