Clint Ward is seen fishing for bass in a weed-choked pool at Lacassine National Wildlife Refuge near Lake Arthur. Photo by John Felsher.

Things look glum now, but bass anglers in coastal Louisiana could find some of the best fishing of their lives in coming months.

For the past year and a half, bass anglers in coastal Louisiana saw nothing but devastation. Hurricane Katrina hit the Mississippi River delta in August 2005, and Hurricane Rita smashed into Cameron Parish in September 2005; the twin monsters left a huge path of destruction. In terms of freshwater fisheries, Rita and Katrina obliterated most of the prime bass habitat in southwestern and southeastern Louisiana. Biologists found few fish east of the Mississippi River, and even fewer in southwest Louisiana south of Toledo Bend.

"East of the Mississippi River and around Venice were the areas most affected by Hurricane Katrina," said Joe Shepard of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries in Baton Rouge. "The entire area east of the Mississippi River was covered in salt water. We lost just about all of the freshwater resource in the area east of the Mississippi River and in the Florida Parishes. We had fish kills in the Pearl River as far north as Bogalusa. Katrina did not impact much west of the Mississippi, but Hurricane Rita destroyed about one-third of the resource in the Atchafalaya Basin. Many areas in southwestern Louisiana were totally wiped out. Many water-control structures were destroyed."

Salty storm surges wiped out freshwater habitat, killing millions of fish and other species. Katrina and Rita ripped leaves from trees and stirred up tons of organic debris. Decaying organic matter consumed oxygen, leaving fish and other creatures to die by suffocation.

The same thing happened when Hurricane Andrew churned up the Atchafalaya Basin in 1992. Fortunately, just three years after Andrew hit, anglers found Basin bass fishing much better than before the storm. Barring any other major storms or unforeseen catastrophes, the fisheries in coastal Louisiana will do the same.

Nature rebuilds much more quickly than humans can. Both southeastern and southwestern Louisiana have already started showing signs of recovery. In the marshes near Caernarvon and Venice, some bass escaped the rising salt waters by fleeing to one of the largest sources of fresh water in the continent -- the Mississippi River. As early as the spring of 2006, people started catching bass near the Caernarvon river siphon and in places around Venice.

"It was months before we could get a boat into the Caernarvon area and sample it," Shepard said. "We didn't find much at that time. Once the river siphons started pumping fresh water back into the Caernarvon marshes, we started finding fish again, some in the 3- to 4-pound range. It's possible that they came through the siphon from the river once we established some freshwater habitat in that area again.