NATCHEZ — Today and Saturday were two days many employees of the St. Catherine Creek National Wildlife Refuge were looking forward to.

Nov. 14 and 15 were the dates the refuge set for its annual youth hunt, but the Mississippi River had other ideas.

This past week, the refuge closed down all youth gun hunts for deer and all hunting seasons, except for bow hunting, until further notice, due to the Mississippi River being three times higher than it usually is this time of the year.

Refuge Manager Bob Strader said almost the entire park has been compromised because of the floodwaters, and hunting in the area is just not realistic right now.

“We have about a 25,000-acre refuge, and 90 percent of it is currently flooded,” Strader said. “The Mississippi River is more than 30 feet above normal for this time of the year. It’s usually at 15 feet, but right now it’s at 48 feet.

“Only about 3,000 acres of the refuge is unaffected by the waters. We could have a safety issue with youth hunters, and definitely would have a safety issue with adult hunters. It would be too many people packed into that small (3,000-acre) area trying to hunt.”

In addition to potential safety hazards, Strader also said the concept of “fair chase” would be diminished if hunters tried to chase after deer in these conditions.

“A lot of deer (in our refuge) have been forced to move outside of their normal home range because of the flooding,” Strader said. “With them being concentrated in an area they’re not used to moving around in, it’s just not an ethical way to hunt.”

Hunting in the refuge is not the only thing being affected by the floodwaters. Strader said construction on the refuge’s various roads and water management units have been put on hold thanks to the flooding.

“The fact that we’ve really only had about three months of construction time — August, September and half of October — before this became a problem has set us back,” Strader said.

“We haven’t been able to improve the roads and replace culverts like we wanted to. We also can’t replace water management structures at this time.”

Strader said the one positive for the refuge that has come from all the rain recently is that it’s helped begin to fill the new fishing pond that was constructed this past summer behind the new main office building.

Strader also expressed disappointment that youth would not be able to enjoy the refuge this hunting season, and hoped the cancellation this year wouldn’t have any long-term consequences.

“I personally always really enjoyed that time with my boys, when we went on youth hunts,” Strader said. “It wasn’t about what I shot, it was all about the kids.

“We liked having kids out here hunting. It gave them a chance to spend quality time outdoors. Hopefully, people won’t forget about us and will come back next year.”