Reviews: Barons Landing

Review for Barons Landing

Reviewed by: Capt. Mac Rubel on Oct 25, 2021
LOA: 48'
Draft: 5.0'

We left Demopolis and went through the lock as a part of a group of twelve going down river into a 90 mile stretch with very few anchoring choices and a lot of competition. We, being slow, devised a strategy that allowed us to bring up the rear and start looking at anchoring alternatives 30 miles below the Kingfisher Bay Marina with the idea that that would be enough of a run to make Bobby's Fish Camp easily reachable the following day while not finding ourselves later in the day in the middle of a group of already occupied anchorages as light was fading.

We looked at four early candidates for anchoring and dismissed them all for one reason or another. We just did not like the idea of anchoring directly in front of a tow understanding that they were going to turn off 400 yards in front of us to make the turn. Other alternatives were dismissed because it was probable that the flotsam at the edge of the water extended out into the area that we would have to drop our anchor.

We then came to Barron's Landing which is listed as an emergency anchorage on Waterway Guide. Right across from a small boat ramp, Barron's sits n LDB at mile marker 168.2 in a small pocket of deep water where old Lock #2 was situated. Moving into pocket takes you off the channel by 150 yards and in line with the LDB. As you move upriver in the pocket the water shoals to 20 feet and we dropped anchor about 20 yards offshore. We let the boat settle down with the engines running and found that we had sufficient current to keep the boat properly oriented and off the bank with the light winds that we had.

We consulted two tows who both said that we were in a good place and were not a bother to their navigation. The fully loaded 8 barge tow did mess with the current flow going by and it took the boat a minute or two after the tow passed to calm down and regain its default position. The tow's passing momentarily increased current flow and then sucked our boat upstream about 20 feet before releasing its grip.

Other than the fact that we felt somewhat precarious in our position, we spend a comfortable evening s, a restful night, and a morning that saw us still in the same place. There is limited boat traffic in the area and limited cell phone service. ATT had one bar an Verizon and T-Mobile had two bars and internet connectivity as well. In all this was a better experience than we thought it would be.

View location on the Waterway Guide Explorer