The big news this past week that sent many Concordia Parish residents, as well as residents from surrounding areas, in a panic mode was the prediction of a possible record water level at Natchez on the Mississippi River.

I am by far not an expert on river predictions, but when the first prediction of 65 feet was made, I began watching the river forecast real close.

Having written hundreds of newspaper columns on boating and fishing for many years, watching the river predictions was nothing new.

My guess was the 65 feet crest on May 20 would change for the better, and so far that is the case.

Predictions are just that, predictions.

Any forecast five days or further out has a lot of room for error.

My electronic mailbox was and still is full. My phone is ringing.

People were asking me what I was doing to prepare for the flood. My answer was, “nothing.”

That sort of made my wife leery, for good reason.

She knows I am like the old man that rode out Katrina. I’ll be among the last to give up and move to higher ground.

The main reason is boats float, and I have plenty of boats.

It goes back to the saying, “Better safe than sorry.” If you feel safer moving all your belongings to higher ground by all means you should, but I am not doing anything, yet.

If we do get flooded it will not be a deal like in Japan when they only had a few hours warning.

A river flood would be a slow gradual thing, and I firmly believe we are safe.

As long as the rains up north hold off, and we stay dry here, I believe all will be well.

Just keep a close eye on the river level predictions and the weather forecast.

The worsy thing that could happen is for the river stage to max out around 59 or 60 feet, which I still believe is what will happen, then drop to about 56 to 58 feet and stay there for a couple of weeks.

If that happens the levee will be soaked and then I’ll start making plans to move to higher ground.

It is rumors that do the most damage.

I have heard, and I am sure you have as well, some of the most ridiculous rumors ever.

My best advice is to do what you think you need to do to keep your family and belongings safe. In the meantime I’ll be working on boats, selling boats and fishing, in that order.

The good news is high water years are followed by some of the best bass, bream, catfish and white perch fishing this area experiences. This year will be no exception.

Once the river level begins to fall, the current blowing over the flooded road beds along the unprotected side of the levee system will produce some of the best fishing this area has to offer.

In the good old days most all the waters I’m talking about were open to fishing.

Most are posted now so make sure you have permission before fishing on someone’s property, flooded or not.

Later on this year the live oxbow lakes, the backwater lakes still connected to the river like Deer Park, Lake Mary, Old River Vidalia and Yucatan near St. Joseph, La. will pump out some huge limits of slab white perch, bream, white bass and largemouth bass.

Of course that won’t happen until we see a level of about 38 feet and falling at Natchez, but at least that gives us something to look forward to.

Just watch the websites that offer river stages and keep an eye on the weather. If the worst does happen we will have plenty of time to get to higher ground.

Eddie Roberts writes a weekly fishing column for The Democrat. He can be reached at fishingwitheddie@bellsouth.net