The watery landscape flecked with yellow-tinged lotus flowers and stands of bald cypress and tupelo is a quintessential hardwood bottom land. The Beaver Dam Slough is the protected area’s most expansive stretch of water. Plus, the backwater is also rife with reptiles and amphibians, including a dozen different types of snakes and a dozen species of turtles. The area is a critical hotspot for migrating waterfowl and neotropical songbirds, attracting species like white pelicans, bald eagles, wood ducks, scarlet tanagers, and Kentucky warblers. The massive 8,400-acre protected area features a landscape dappled with bogs, sloughs, and at least 15 oxbow lakes-all teeming with life. Tucked away in northwestern Kentucky, not far from the confluence of the iconic Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, the state’s Ballard Wildlife Management Area is a wildlife-loaded wonderland for paddlers. Ballard Wildlife Management Areaīallard Wildlife Management Area has 15 oxbow lakes to paddle around. Wedged between Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley, this area has nearly 300 miles of pristine shoreline to explore. The put-in for this one is at Tucker Lane off KY 795 (also called Scale Road) and the take-out is at the bridge on Milliken Mill Lane off KY 795.Īfter a stint on the Clarks River, you can easily tack on a trip to one of the Kentucky’s premier flatwater paddling destinations-the 170,000-acre Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. You’ll have to portage several logjams, but it’s the best way to experience the bottom land hardwood ecosystem firsthand. If you’re an experienced paddler, the four-mile section between Tucker Lane and Milliken Mill Lane is a good challenge. One of Kentucky’s most stunning Blue Water Trails, the ribbon of river enshrined in the wildlife refuge has the best access for recreational paddlers. Plucky paddlers also have the opportunity to spot frolicsome families of river otters along the cypress and willow-fringed waterway. Between the permanent residents and migratory visitors, the refuge has about 200 different species of birds at any given time. The protected area is sure to have bird lovers drooling, as the refuge is home to everything from more common songbirds to rare, bucket-list worthy species, like cerulean warblers, indigo buntings, and Acadian flycatchers. One of the only waterways in western Kentucky to escape being dammed or channeled by human hands, the wildlife refuge also protects one of the largest areas of bottom land hardwood forest remaining in the Southeast. The only national wildlife refuge in the Bluegrass state, the 8,000-plus acre Clarks River National Wildlife Refuge sprawls over the East Fork of the Clarks River, named for Revolutionary War commander George Rogers Clark. White-tailed deer are seen frequently in the Clarks River National Wildlife Refuge. So load up the boat, grab the birding binoculars, and hit the beautiful backwaters of western Kentucky (just don’t forget the bug spray!). The unspoiled and unfrequented swamps and sloughs have a primordial, prehistoric vibe where you can expect to spot tons of birds and maybe a white-tailed deer hiding among the trees or a river otter floating alongside you in the water. Once at the edge of the Gulf of Mexico, the waterways of the Jackson Purchase have more in common with the backwaters of Louisiana than the rest of Kentucky, and feature some of the most preciously scarce habitats in North America. The landscape of the Jackson Purchase area of western Kentucky offers a mosaic of wetlands inundated with wildlife-loaded swamps and sloughs, shaded by groves of water-logged bald cypress and tupelo-ecosystems that are exceptionally rare in the Southeast. The state is home to some of the planet’s most epic stretches of whitewater, but the western corner of Kentucky harbors waters of a different, slower pace. Second only to Alaska in the amount of rushing water available to paddlers, Kentucky is a paradise for kayakers, canoeists, and paddleboarders.
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