Wow...... Dragging a bit this Monday. It was a long weekend, but a great one.

The wife has been looking for any excuse to get back to Cullman after our Sipsey Fork/Bassmaster's trip. Well, Oktoberfest was her excuse. I booked a room at the Flying Fifty for a long weekend, made a dinner reservation at All Steak, and signed up for the 10K Saturday AM.

I had very little information. The wife wanted to go anywhere, but the Sipsey Fork. She had fun trout fishing, but she's a bass fisherman. I began scouting. It was either the Duck River below 278, the Broglen River below County Rd 503, or the Mulberry Fork. I drove up early Friday and toured most of Cullman County, Hanceville and Garden City, AL. The Duck didn't have any water. Guessing the dam they built has ended any possibilities of canoeing this river unless there is a significant rain. The Broglen looked great. Water was moving and the take out on Hwy 91 just outside of Hanceville is good. With a little work, that could be a great venue. Up river from there about 6 miles was the next bridge on County Rd 703. Well, at this bridge there was plenty of room to park along side the road, but they had no parking signs all along the road. Guess the locals didn't want people congregating there. I'll have to find another access point up from Hwy 91. The water was too low at Hwy 278 to consider it. If anyone knows a good access point, I'd love to hear it.

So, on to Mulberry Fork. Seems Tyson dropped an environmental bomb on the river around Garden City. To compensate, they paid to have a facility put in on the river. It is brand new a first class. Possibly the best facility we've been to outside of the one on Cypress Creek in Florence, Al. https://www.outdooralabama.com/articles/mulberry-fork-access-upgraded-garden-city-river-park





Paved parking, trash cans, restrooms, a kayak slide to get boats in the water, and a paved ramp for taking out. There's also a walking trail along the river for those that are there without a boat. Very easy to get to, but there aren't many amenities in Garden City. There was a single gas station in the town and that was all I saw. There didn't appear to be any take outs below Garden City, so I searched up river. The first try was County Rd 747. This is approximately 11 miles north of the Garden City facility. While there was enough room here to unload a canoe, there was no parking that I saw. Where you would have parked, someone had piled up a bunch of riprap. Guessing another effort by the locals to prevent people from parking there. Oh well. I looked at the bridge on County Rd 541. While it was not ideal, it would work. Small place to park and a steep, rocky decent to the river, but we could do it.

Momma's car parked for shuttle purposes


Rocky decent


Nice sandy slide to the river under the bridge

Well, I've nailed the trip down. 6 miles on the Mulberry Fork that we've never been on and hadn't read much about other than the fishing was supposed to be good.

Went to Flying Fifty to check in. It's a small boutique hotel in downtown Cullman. It's walking distance to all the activities and we love it. Already booking it again for the Christmas stuff that Cullman does.



Rumor's Deli is a sports bar that shares the parking lot. The sandwiches there are very good. Grabbed a sandwich and waited for momma to drive up. They had this pic above the urinal in the men's restroom. I thought it was funny.



Saturday was Oktoberfest and the 10K. I got to bed early, woke up early, put in some warm up miles, and ran the race.



Said this was their largest turnout with almost 300 people.



These nice young ladies showed up for the race in these outfits, full makeup, and getting their pics taken. I have no idea who they are or what they were doing, but they ran the 5K. Seems they were there last year too?


Anyway, the race was fun. I did well and started drinking big beers at 930AM. Oktoberfest was great. Cullman does it right and we had a great time. The highlight for us was the wiener dog races. The guy that MC'd the event had me rolling (along with the big beers I was drinking).




Wrapped it up with a nice dinner at All Steak. The wife's prime rib was very good. My ribeye was just OK. I need to stop getting steaks at restaurants.

Shook off the beers from Saturday and got motivated for the river. I was dragging a bit and by the time we shuttled around, unloaded, and got going it was 10AM. Later than I would have liked, but it worked out. I had planned on our normal 1 mile per hour, but with the low water and the walking we did, the trip ended up taking us 7.5hrs. We were loaded up and headed home at 530PM.

Most of the river looked like this, shallow and rocky. Hard bottom with the occasional sand.


The river lived up to its reputation for rapids. While they were easy to negotiate at this water level, I wouldn't want to be out there after a heavy rain.



There were numerous shoals. We walked a good bit, but not terrible. The perfect water level would have been another 1/2 foot higher I think. There were several islands and we stopped at this one around noon and ate.



Lot's of bluffs on this river. Not many houses. Never saw anyone until we got to the take out and they were on the bank.



Sundown at the takeout. The bald eagle made an appearance, but was flying too fast to get a good pic.





Oh, the fishing? Amazing. The wife and I both caught over 3 dozen bass apiece. It was my time to shine as I seemed to catch the bigger fish all day. The highlight was this 4 lb spot that slurped my pop-r then danced around the canoe like a marlin with a single treble hook in his mouth. Still can't believe I landed it.



Caught another one right at 3 lbs. There are a ton of hungry 10-13" spots on this river that it's amazing.

nice. I went as well saturday afternoon to octoberfest and had a great time.. i did meet a good ole honest person and a nice guy at that!

Thank you! Good stuff, William, as usual.

Thanks again for these posts!

Awesome , Thanks for sharing!

EXCELLENT!!!!

Great pics. Have a farm I Garden City. Remember when I was about 9 or 10 my grandfather would take me on the Mulberry to fish.

Wish id went and drank a beer with ya! Another awesome looking trip

Love the pics of the river. My early years were spent on old 31 leading to that park and now blocked off bridge. Lost a good friend on that railroad bridge….

It’s interesting seeing someone else’s perspective on an area that had such an influence on your life….


Also, Garth Brooks filmed a music video on that old bridge. Made for quite the spectacle years ago. The song and video was never released, but it caused a stir in the area

I'm down river from there a few miles right above I-65 bridge. It gets deeper down my direction. I've wade fished that area a bunch back in my younger years. Glad you had a good time.

X2...