Crawfishermen say flooding could bring in bumper crop

MORGANZA, LA (WAFB) - Crawfishermen along the river in Morganza are saying what could be bad news for farmers here would actually help them pull in a bumper crop.

"I love nature," says Hank Rimmer.  "And I tried to build a place to compliment nature and not go against it."

Rimmer has been fishing the same 260 acres of swampland since 1978.  It's a hard-scrabble existence that rises and falls with the levels of the Mississippi River.

"The Mississippi is right over there," continued Rimmer.  "Evidently, a hundred years ago, when it got high, it must have flowed through here."

Even though the Army Corps of Engineers has yet to decide whether or not to open the Morganza Spillway, Rimmer thinks those waters will soon be flowing here again.  He says you just have to read the signs.

"It's almost like these crawfish know the water's gonna rise," said Rimmer. "In the last five to seven days since the river's been coming up, they've been coming out the ground.  They're active.  They're throwing shells, growing, getting thicker and thicker.  It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen."

It mirrors some of the stories he's heard about the crawfishing after the 1973 flood.  River waters rich with nutrients and sediment caused a crawfish baby boom of sorts.  When the waters receded, crawfish were trapped in the swamps producing near-record catches for five years.

"The river is gonna do what it wants to do," said Rimmer.

While he waits on the Corps' decision, he continues to fish like he's done for the past 33 years, banking that nature will run its course.

"If they don't go crazy and open this thing wide open, and let it ease in here, it probably helps people more than it hurts them," said Rimmer.

Hank says no matter what the Corps does, as long as the water doesn't hang around too long, he'll have plenty of crawfish for everybody.

When it comes to shrimp, it's a different story.  Wildlife and Fisheries opened brown shrimp season Friday for the Atchafalaya River to Vermilion Bay, but they say opening the spillways could threaten the harvest.

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