Weekends Away

Secrets of the Swamp

How Tickfaw Water Taxi can help you realize the mystery in your own backyard, and solve it, all at the same time.
 by Jamie White
Our Lady of Blind River, a chapel built decades ago
as a place for folks at fishing camps to worship,
is one of the many secrets accessible only by water that Captain Bobby Perry can show his passengers.
The image of glimmering tea-colored water and waxy cypress knees is at once familiar, and exotic to us. It is, after all, practically our backyard. But if in a quiet moment, all that cypress and Spanish moss seep into our drifting imaginations, the mystery of what hides in those backwaters sends us shivers and sparks curiosity as to its secrets.

For Captain Bobby Perry of Tickfaw Water Taxi and Outback Swamp Tours, it's no guessing game; it's his own giant playground.

When asked what folks can expect when he takes them out on the water, he wisely answers with more questions. "What age group are they? Are they from around here? Is it a family, corporate event or group of friends? Are there kids present?" Only with the answers can he develop the individual intinerary he creates for every group he takes onto the water.

In addition to his Moonlight Cruises, Swamp Tours and Water Taxi, he offers the option of a private charter. On the charter, families can bring along an ice chest with drinks and snacks and be set for a day of full on exploration. He picks passengers up from a variety of locations, making the drive for them as short as possible. And Perry's enthusiasm to show folks the treasures buried in the waterways he navigates is palpable.

Perry can point out where trains used to chug along tracks in the 1800s, which have since been torn down and rotted away. He takes passengers to Our Lady of Blind River, the chapel accessible only by water; or to a small area where four hundred cypress trees are planted in rows; to cypress families that have grown to forty feet in diameter; to a camp full of timbering memorabilia. He'll take a group to bars or restaurants accessible only by boat. Or he'll show passengers centuries-old grave sites, or where there's a bright green golf course hiding in the midst of lily pads and cypress knees.

His individual itineraries cater to specific interests. He's soon to start offering trips specifically for photographers; sincerely interested in how they see his backyard, his giant playground, as focus, framing, and as art. His own enthusiasm for birding makes him an excellent guide for bird enthusiasts. In fact, he's been out at dawn a few mornings this week, watching for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, a bird previously thought to be extinct and currently thought to only live in Arkansas in very small numbers. He's heard of recent sightings and has gone out to see if they're of the Pleated Woodpecker, which is very similar in appearance, or if the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is yet another of the secrets the swamp is hiding, another piece of buried treasure for him to find.

And his tours offer just as many surprises, whether its doing some pirating with the kids, which means using the PA system to "raid" a fishing boat for "doubloons" (as equally surprised and amused fishermen fish through their pockets for pennies); or his dressing as a German lady settler to tell the historical viewpoint of his character's counterparts.

Places Perry might help his passengers explore include the Amite River, Petit Amite, Blind River, Diversion Canal, Flat Lake, and all the nooks, secrets, and mysteries of those four hundred miles of waterway out there. Out there in our backyard.

DETAILS. details. DETAILS.

Tickfaw Water Taxi
Swamp Tours: $10–$25
Private Charters: $100 per hour
(225) 315-4971
www.tickfawwatertaxi.com