The Weir Dam

After the droughts of the 80s and the plug blowout. The lake would stay up with the river rise, and drop again with it's falls, which made fishing conditions awful.  I started out with the County Board of Supervisors. You see in the 80s the four fish camps were almost as big as the town of Tunica, about 160 acres of property, 1 mile long and 1/4 mile wide.

Continue ReadingThe Weir Dam

The Cutoff, In The Beginning

The Cutoff, in the beginning. The southern-most fish camp was H & R camp, south of Nel-Win.  A man named Henry Lee ran H&R and they had a rail and tram, no dock.  They would put their boats on, loaded with gear and motor, and launch it into the water ready to fish.  The camps all had restaurants with cold beer and the kitchens would always cook what you caught that day.

Continue ReadingThe Cutoff, In The Beginning
Read more about the article Looking Back
default

Looking Back

Let's rewind back in time to 1947, to 74 years ago and war had just ended for our country.  The Army Corps. of Engineers planned to turn a 20 mile bend in the river into a 1/2 mile long "straight". This created the Tunica Cutoff, now Tunica Lake, and Bordeaux Point landing, or fish camp.

Continue ReadingLooking Back

Hickie’s Place

Grand daddy’s old commissary building over the last 35 years has been 15 different bars, one was Hickie's. He was a local boy whose dad had the city barber shop on Main Street in downtown Tunica. The barber shop was on the corner where Fox Island Road meets Main Street. That's where all the men played dominoes during the day in the back room.

Continue ReadingHickie’s Place

Grabblin or Noodlin’

We'z goin' Sunday 'bout dark to see how our luck for grabblin is. Some of y'all may know this as noodlin' I kin use the word "y'all" because most above the Mason-Dixon line have no idea what these are, though some Yankees have heard tell of noodlin'. See, what happens is... Well, we'll get to that.

Continue ReadingGrabblin or Noodlin’

Casinos for Tunica

It was all the talk, King Baby had cut a deal with the Casino crew from the Gulf Coast to move to the Cutoff and set up shop. The coffee shop folks were a talking, I came in for a glass of tea and the retired crew wanted to know if I was going to get a "boat" at my camp.

Continue ReadingCasinos for Tunica

Droughts of the 80s

During the drought’s of the mid 80’s we had only been in business about 5 years. The river would be below zero on the Memphis gauge by earl July. The lake silt bar would keep the lake at about a six foot river gauge. Early next year the timber company, Anderson Tully, was cutting timber on the island. They were loading flat top barges with timber to take to their Vicksburg mill.

Continue ReadingDroughts of the 80s