It was about time that I checked a bit of this river out.
We have been hearing about this river since we moved down to Arkansas. Finally, we got the opportunity to go check it out on Sunday. Some friends were having a baptism there, and it was an incredible location.
First off, the river itself is very clear and cool. It winds through the Ozark Mountains and twists and turns the whole way. I can imagine how big it must get after a heavy rain. I've always enjoyed checking out rivers anyway, but this one was more magnificent than a lot that I have seen.
THE BLUFFS
The bluffs on the side of the river were amazing. Part of me wished that the river was deeper so that I could jump off the bluffs and plunge into the water below. When I say "part of me," I guess that I mean all of me. I once stood at the edge of a 90 foot cliff and looked down, preparing to jump. As I looked down, I noticed another cliff about 30 feet below me, so I climbed down to it instead!
Even that 60 foot cliff seemed too high, although I made it. Unfortunately, I wasted my breath screaming that it was too high of a jump all the way down, so by the time that I hit the water and was plunged deep beneath the surface, I was already out of breath. Long story short, I made it that time, and did not jump off of any of these. They were still cool just to look at.
THE ANIMALS
As usual, I even found animals there! One of the first that I noticed were the tadpoles. There were quite a few near the edge of the river, but they would swim out deeper when you walked by.
I did see a few American Bullfrogs too, but they were all juveniles. I am guessing that the tadpoles were the same species, though I did not catch any to check.
I also happened upon this interesting clue.
Yes, that is a bit of a shed snake skin. Sometimes you will find this evidence of their presence before you ever see the snake (if you can even find him.) For me, this is encouragement to check the surrounding area.
Before too long I found what I was looking for. Actually, I caught two Northern Water Snakes that day.
In the end, I let this one go in the water. Here it is starting to hide between the rocks on the bottom of the river.
THE FISHING
At one point, I caught a few crickets under a rock and decided to toss them into the water. Sure enough, some fish immediately came to the surface and gobbled them up. When I saw this, I went back to the truck and grabbed a couple fishing poles. Before too long, Monster Truck and I were having fun catching a few sunfish and bass.
THE JUMPING IN WITH YOUR CLOTHES ON TO CATCH TURTLES
Yeah, this is the same reason that some people do not like going out on boats with me. Sooner or later, I often wind up in the water, and it is usually intentional. I remember once canoeing with @truconspiracy and his son. We had not even been out in the canoe for five minutes and I jumped out after a water snake. About as quickly as I had jumped out I jumped back in, with the water serpent in my hand. @Truconspiracy then notified me that he was not exactly too fond of snakes... now he tells me!
Anyway, while Monster Truck and I were fishing, I saw what I thought was a turtle on the other side of the river. The fact that it was "all the way over there" was not much of a deterrent. In fact, if it was supposed to be a deterrent, it did not work at all. As I observed the turtle-like shape so very far away, I asked Monster Truck, "Do I have spare clothes in the truck?" He assured me that I did, so I emptied my pockets and took off my boots.
Within moments I was on stealth mode swimming across the river. As I got closer, I noticed that there was not one, but three turtles basking on logs near the other shore. Soon, I had caught them all, so at least I did not get wet for nothing!
ALREADY PLANNING A RETURN
Both @mama-pepper and myself really enjoyed our time there, and we are planning on heading back for longer. Perhaps soon we will even plan on spending the day at the river, but, before too long, we want to take the @little-peppers camping there too! Time will tell and we will see, but it is nice to have finally visited this great river.
The area that I explored was only a few hundred feet long too, so hopefully we can check out a lot more of the Buffalo River in the near future.
As always, I'm @papa-pepper and here's the proof:
proof-of-buffalo-river
Until next time…
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