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SOMETIMES IT'S BETTER to be caught in the middle, especially when the problems on both sides stem from the wrath of two "ladies"--namely Rita and Katrina, the Gulf Coast hurricanes of 2005.

Longtime readers of this column know Louisiana, a state with a license plate reading "Sportsman's Paradise," has been a favorite outdoor destination of mine for many years.

Places where I'd fished and hunted ducks--like the tiny coastal areas of Cameron and Holly Beach south of Lake Charles, or the bayou town of Lafitte, just southeast of New Orleans--were largely flooded or flattened by the hurricanes. These are places where residents have a remarkable connection to their hunting and fishing heritage.

According to the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries' Dave Moreland, the storms have impacted waterfowl seasons in both southwestern and southeastern Louisiana.

"Marsh habitat that would have provided winter food for ducks was destroyed; this habitat will recover, but it forced areas that were traditionally important hunting areas to be messed up for this year," Moreland explained.

Additionally, the infrastructure damage to the waterfowl commercial hunting business in southwestern Louisiana created problems there. In southeastern Louisiana, which has important public waterfowl hunting areas, extensive destruction of roads and launches limited access.

Morgan City is at the southeastern edge of Louisiana's Cajun Coast. It's at the southern end, human-population-wise, of the nearly 1 million-acre Atchafalaya Basin Floodway, with its splendid diversity of wetlands, including swamps, marshes, ponds, bayous and rivers great and small.

Infrastructure and support resources for offshore oil and gas production platforms were destroyed or degraded on both sides of the Atchafalaya. But the Morgan City area escaped largely unscathed except for some damage to freshwater habitat and drinking water from saltwater intrusion caused by Rita's storm surge and minor wind damage from Katrina, according to Luke Manfre, a member of the town council.

Manfre, a 48-year-old investment counselor, has hunted and fished this swampy wonderland since he was a boy. He recalls earlier days when mallards would pour into the Atchafalaya Basin like oil through the pipelines that carry today's economic lifeblood through this coastal region.