Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire High water pushing deer to the levees

The Mississippi is at flood stage, and the overflow swamps are full of water.....a friend emailed this picture of deer ganged up on the levee north of Vicksburg.....water is so high in the Atchafalya basin they closed turkey season early in some areas. The deer and rabbits are pushed up on levees and spoil banks, and the poachers are having a field day.

While I think we have way too many laws in general and game laws are no exception, it's too bad that the trash are getting to kill those deers so easy.

Sorry about the floods. I been drinkin' lots of Green Tea for my health here of late and...you know.

I think its the rain and snow melt, Ethan. Don't blame yourself.


I've got to fly a pipeline across the basin in a helicopter next week (as a passenger), never flown low and slow with the water in there this high....hope to get some good pics which I will put up when I get back.

Looks like they gonna have a gumbo up around Lake Charles way,....

My Evonne, the sweetest one, me oh my oh,
Son of a gun we'll have big fun on the bayou.

all you need is a stout stick and a gunny sack....

Did you just take that pic? We've got more green up here and the Arklatex was a lot greener than that when I was down there a month ago. Y'all must've had a hard winter.

That picture was taken in Missouri, due to the flooding there, deer are looking for any high ground they can find.

That's a pretty awesome picture. The deer are sure well fed.
Hope things get back to normal down there soon.

I see a great spot for a Fall treestand!

That helicopter tour sure seems like a hihlight of the month experience!

It is sad that some people (poachers) have no conscience.

Not only that but the buffalo gnats at real bad too. I hear rumors that blue tounge comes from that. miles

Well I knew it was flooding in Missouri as I only live a few miles from there and am in contact nearly constantly with friends in that state. Some of the rivers which are swollen here are in flood stage there. I just figured Steve was posting a pic of his home area since that's what the post was about. I thought about saying something about the flooding near here, but I think it's bad form to compare natural disasters. lol

It is all the same one. Your water will run down to Steve and while it is doing it, it holds up our rivers and makes our floods worse. miles

Really? No way dude!!!!! Far out.

That picture was taken about 15 miles from Tara, Miss., north of Natchez. According to the guy who emailed it......and its the levee around Eagle Lake, not the river levee, although you could find the same thing anywhere on the lower Miss.

the river is high everywhere.....they had to open the Bonnet Carre spillway to take pressure off the levees in New Orleans....which will ruin the fishing in Lake Ponchartrain for a year or two.

Ironically, I was down at the headquarters of the Corps of Engineers New Orleans district, on the river levee at the great bend in the river, and the river water was so high the wind was splashing it on the employees cars in the parking lot, which is on top of the levee.

I didn't figure you got one of Missouri off the internet when you was talking about your area.

It is flooded pretty badly up here too, although not immediately around where I live. Thirty miles east they're having a time.

I sure hope the CIA doesn't blow up the levees again to kill black folk with that water flooding!!!

- Just like they invented AIDS, Crack and Gangsta Rap.:)

When I was young I hunted the spillway a lot. Wasn't uncommon to see guys drop a guy with dogs off on one end a small island in a boat, left when the water was coming up and the others stand on the other end.

I know of one public WMA here in Texas that floods that is a little over 10,000 acres and most of their deer wind up on a 150 acre hill at least once a year....one year a deer was poached there on that hill that scored over 215".

Well now, there you go. Those levees are just un-natural. If you'd let all that water spread out a bit, them deer could wade, like nature intended.

When I was a teen, back in NoDak., we had a Chinook come through and melt the snow. The ground was still frozen of course, so we had about 4 inches of water everywhere, even out of the bottoms. Mind you, this is sand country... A mile north of town was an old Indian burial ground (private ranch property - which I had permission to hunt) with maybe 50 acres of prairie and a whole bunch of buffalo or "bull" berry thickets on it.

I had a hey-day "wing-shooting" cottontails bailing out of those bushes, which they had climbed to get out of the water.

Funny thing is, I'm usually not believed, but how do you think those rabbits survived for millenia in the bottomlands floods, before "flood control"?

They climbed trees. Not verticle trunks to be sure, but leaning trunks, dense bushes, and deadfalls.

I don't know how far north they go but down South we have Swamp rabbits that are larger than a cottontail and they will swim to get away from dogs. Water doesn't seem to be a problem for them. miles