"From a fisheries perspective, Hurricane Katrina didn't cause nearly as much damage as we expected in the Mississippi River delta. The river was a nice sanctuary for those fish. Bass started filtering back as the habitat returned."

On the plus side, a catastrophic fish kill removes many major predators and rough fish from a system. With few adult bass or other predators eating them, young bass' survival rate is better than normal. And the state concentrated stocking efforts in the hardest-hit areas. Instead of fry, biologists began stocking more Florida bass in the 6- to 8-inch range. Since fewer things can eat an 8-inch bass than can devour a 1-inch bass, more of these "phase 2" fish survive to adulthood.

Largemouth bass in Louisiana grow to about 8 to 12 inches in one year. Therefore, by this spring and summer, many bass born in the empty waters of 2006 should grow large enough to provide excellent recreation for anglers. Anglers in hurricane-ravaged areas might catch a few big fish, but shouldn't expect many monsters this year. However, in two to four years, people could find some giant bucketmouths in places where they never caught big bass before.

"Pockets of fish survived," said Howard Rogillio, an LDWF fisheries biologist in Lacombe. "The surviving fish moved out into available habitat. We put some adult fish in Caernarvon as broodstock. They should start spawning and filling in some of the voids.

"This is a good chance to put more Florida bass in some waters. We might be more successful in adding the Florida bass genes into some systems than we've had in the past. We've been stocking Floridas for years, but they have had a lot of competition. The fish that we stock now might see a little better survival rate."

After the hurricanes, many anglers participated in Operation Jump Start. After tournaments in the relatively untouched Atchafalaya Basin, anglers donated fish to LDWF biologists, who then released the fish, including many large breeders, into waters nearly devoid of fish. These Basin bass fanatics repaid a debt to southeastern Louisiana anglers who released fish from the Manchac area, Pearl River and other places to re-establish bass in the Atchafalaya Basin after Hurricane Andrew struck the area in 1992.

"The areas we are really concerned about are the ones with no riverine influence," Shepard said. "We stocked adult fish and fingerlings in the Caernarvon area. That area will recover fairly quickly. Fish in the Pearl River can come down from the upper reaches of the river. East of the Mississippi River, we did not see much of spawn in 2006, because those areas had so few fish, but we should have a good spawn in 2007. We should see good production in the affected areas. People should catch a lot of small fish in 2007."